The Times, They Are a-Changin'
by Kimberly T
Summary: NOW FINISHED! #12 thru 15 in the saga; Goliath and Elisa are getting married! And there are even more changes in store for our intrepid gargoyles, and their allies!
1. Part 1: Best-Laid Plans

**LIFE GOES ON series**

**Prologue:**

Twenty-five minutes to midnight, in the desert about seven miles out from the small town of Naco, Arizona. No moon was visible, it being the first night of the new moon; what little illumination was provided by the lights of the town, a faint glow on the horizon, and by the thousands upon thousands of stars twinkling in the sky. Sitting in the driver's seat of a Toyota Land Cruiser that quietly idled with its lights off, the veteran U.S.-Mexico Border Patrol Agent Victor Gonzales lowered his night-vision binoculars and sighed, "Awfully quiet, for such a prime Coyote night. Too quiet…"

"Coyote night?" rookie agent Robert Carney blinked confusedly. "Are they more active on moonless nights? I heard my landlord complaining about his cat being eaten by one last week…"

Victor briefly rolled his eyes. "I'm not talking about the four-footed kind, Rookie. Did you sleep through the Orientation briefing, or what? 'Coyote' is the latest nickname for the illegals' paid guides. 'Cause they can be just as sneaky, and they have just about as much morals, as a coyote—Hell, probably less morals, considering I know some folks that have made pets of coyote pups. I'm talking about the bastards that make a business out of smuggling people across the border. Some of 'em actually have sort-of good intentions, but for every one that's actually looking to help his countrymen find work in the U.S. there's a hundred others that'll take every last peso a group of peasants could scrape together, then lead them out into the desert and let them die of everything from heatstroke to snakebite to dehydration to hypothermia, trying to sneak across the border. That one who got away from the last roundup by running south of the border again was probably their 'coyote', and I'll bet you anything you can buy in town that he'll be out here tomorrow night or the night after with a _new_ batch of poor half-frozen buggers just like the ones we brought in. 'Coyotes' don't give a damn about anything except making money, hand over fist… and they know they will, because _every day of the year_ we get hundreds, Hell, thousands of people trying to cross illegally."

"I remember that much," Robert said rather huffily. It may have been his first real night on patrol, but he did remember the statistics on illegal crossings of the Mexican-American border, from the lecture his shift chief had given him earlier. And the desert between the small town of Naco, Arizona, USA and its mirror-image of Naco, Sonora, Mexico was one of the favored crossings for illegals. "So they do more guide work on moonless nights?"

"Mm-hmm. Makes it harder for us to see them, in between the areas lit by the stadium lights… unless we happen to be looking in the right direction with these," as he lifted his night-vision binoculars to his eyes again. "Speaking of which, son, I told you twice already I expect you to keep looking through those NVB's every second we're out here. Do I gotta glue 'em to your eyebrows or something?"

Robert the Rookie hastily raised his NVB's up to his eyes again, and resumed scanning the desert around them for signs of motion, of human life where humans did not belong. "You said a few minutes ago it was quiet. But our team has already found a total of three dozen immigrants tonight…"

"Rookie, I've personally rounded up that many before in the first hour after sunset! But Central hasn't reported a single hit from the underground sensors or from the local ranchers in well over an hour, and usually the teams are kept hopping from hit to hit clear till dawn." Victor scanned the surrounding terrain as he mused aloud, "I wonder if they've found a way to disable some sensors without triggering the failsafes…"

After a short silence from the passenger seat, Robert's voice said hesitantly, almost shakily, "Or maybe they've found a new method of crossing…"

"Rookie, the Rio Grande is over in Texas. There's no river around here that they can float down or swim across to avoid detection. And the earth here's no good for tunneling, like that smuggling route they shut down in Nogales last month; tunnels dug here are apt to collapse halfway through digging. And the coyotes know they can't smuggle their people through here in the trunks of their cars, like they do in Tijuana; not when the roads are slow enough we can take the time to check every car. So how the hell else are they going to cross?"

"By air…?"

Victor snorted in amusement. "That's what comes of a college education; so much book-learning crammed into your skull it's squeezed out all your common sense. Think it through, rookie! The people who want to come to the U.S. from Mexico are looking for work, because they are _dirt-poor_. Most of them can barely afford the coyote's fees for crossing on foot; how the Hell are they going to afford an airplane?"

"I didn't say an airplane…"

Victor just rolled his eyes. "What then, a _hot-air balloon_!"

"Ah… No, they're not balloons…"

"Well then, what do you think they're…" Just then ,the exact words his rookie had used registered in Victor's brain, and he lowered his NVB's and looked sharply at him. "_What_ did you say? Did you spot something?"

Robert wordlessly pointed with one hand at where he was aiming his NVB's with the other: off to the southwest, and _upwards_. Victor hurriedly but quietly opened the door and slipped out of the SUV, to train his binoculars in the direction Robert was pointing. "What am I looking for?"

"I swear to God, I do _not_ know. But there's three of them, two big ones and a little one…"

"Where? I don't… _Madre de Dios_!"

"You see 'em now, huh?"

"I… I see them, but I don't believe my eyes!" Victor lowered his NVB's for a moment to stare fixedly at that same patch of starry sky with only his eyes, but saw nothing in that fashion; they were too far away to make out against the field of stars. So he lifted his binoculars back into position, and focused them in more sharply. "The… the biggest one is carrying a passenger…"

"And the last one in line is carrying some bundles in its hands. And I swear to God that the little one between them is carrying a teddy bear…"

"_Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum_…" 1

"Um… do we report this?"

"…No. Absolutely not. We are going to keep our mouths shut about this to everyone on shift, all right? The only one I'm going to talk about this to is Father Aguilar, after I say about a hundred rosaries… Or maybe I'll just get very, very drunk. Or maybe I'll do both…"

By unspoken agreement, they kept their NVB's trained on the bizarre flyers overhead until they had crossed well over the border to the U.S., and were out of their technologically-enhanced fields of vision. Finally, Victor lowered his NVB's and sighed. "I've been on this job for over ten years now, and I thought I'd seen everything. But after tonight… I tell you, rookie…

**"THE TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'…" **

**PART 1: BEST-LAID PLANS**

By Kimberly T. (e-mail: kimbertow at yahoo dot com)

Goliath wears a tux!

Broadway goes on a diet!

And Demona is saved by humans!

(Author's note: in addition to the standard disclaimer—if I owned these characters, the show would still be airing!—I must inform you that a part of Demona's history that I've made reference to--the Paris Clan, and its tragic demise--is from the G:TGS story, "From the Heart" and is therefore the property of the TGS staff. Also, this story has been divided into multiple chapters due to its sheer size, and some items will have explanatory footnotes at the end of this section.)

**_TO BEGIN_**…

Castle Wyvern, in the hour before dawn. Half an hour ago, just after the last patrol had returned, Elisa had arrived at the castle. Now she and Goliath were alone on the battlements, after Goliath had made it quietly clear that the rest of the clan was to stay inside and _not_ interrupt them for anything short of Oberon's return.

Now, while gargoyles are highly social creatures, living in clans with strong interpersonal bonds, they do understand the concept and value of privacy. And obedience to the clan leader is one of the first rules drummed into each hatchling's head, shortly after it breaks shell. So when a clan leader tells everyone in his clan to leave him and his beloved alone for a while, normally, they would comply without question.

But when there's a bet going on…

"Ssshhh!" Brooklyn hissed to his rookery brother Broadway as he twisted his head to glare back at him. "I can't hear what they're saying when you breathe so loud!" Then he self-consciously patted the black bandanna he'd tied on to cover his white mane, plastered himself against the cobblestoned roof of the turret and slowly crept forward on his belly again. Turning his head so his beak wouldn't stick out over the edge of the roof, he peered with his left eye at the couple on the roof below and to the right, and strained his left ear to hear their words above the wind whistling past his perch. After another minute or so, he murmured out the other side of his beak, "He's talking to her about his bonding scent…"

oo00oo00oo

Down inside the castle, Angela and Hudson were hovering behind Lexington, Angela still uncertainly holding a screwdriver in her hands, as he sat down in front of his computer and began typing rapidly while moving his mouse with his tail-tip. "Is it working?"

"Yes!" Lex crowed as the image on his monitor slowly shifted from a view of the city below them to an image of Goliath and Elisa on the roof, in a shadowed corner that was normally not within view of the cameras. Hacking into the security cameras' video feeds had been easy, but gaining control of the remote camera servos and being able to move them had required a little more work, with Angela as an extra pair of hands as he'd crossed wires and patched in cables. "We have visual! Now if I can only improve the audio…"

"We really shouldn't be doing this…" Angela began uncertainly.

Standing next to her, Hudson said with a wry grin and a thicker brogue than usual, "Nay, we shouldna. But I'll na speak of it to our leader if ye dinna…"

Lexington reminded Angela, "Hey, you were the one wishing we had a way to turn the cameras! I promise, I'll put nearly everything back the way it was when I'm done." Lex silently hoped they wouldn't pick up on the word 'nearly'. Lexington had decided early on, in his unofficial career as a spy on Xanatos, that no advantage should be completely turned away. He'd already inveigled his way into a few 'back doors' in Xanatos Enterprise's computers, so he could quietly, at Goliath's own bidding, monitor what he could of Xanatos' larger business transactions and projects under development. (Though the clan was very grateful to Xanatos for all the help he'd given them lately, after the many lies and betrayals the man had perpetrated in the past, they were by no means ready to fully trust him.) Though so far, Lex had found nothing to ring alarm bells; no purchases of grimorums or unusually named or shaped talismans, no secret build-up of yet another private army, not even any really cutthroat buyouts of the business competition, as near as he could tell. Lexington was almost ready to believe that Xanatos had finally learned how to play nice. He brought his thoughts back to the present as he tweaked the audio on his speakers and said, "He said something about bonding scents…"

"It's really a shame that humans have such a poor sense of smell," Angela mused. "She probably can't even tell she's marked Father already!"

"Ssshhh!"

oo00oo00oo

Back up on the highest turret, Brooklyn's ears perked at the mention of his own name, and he wryly agreed with Goliath's assessment of what he might say about their leader's mated-but-not-mated status. _'SOLD, awaiting pickup by owner'… yeah, that fits_! Then his ears really perked, and he hissed excitedly to Broadway, "She just said they should make it official!"

oo00oo00oo

Down in the living room, Angela gave a little bounce and clapped for excitement as she and Lex heard that as well. Then Lex hurriedly hushed her as he said tensely, "Wait a minute; now he's asking about Father Sullivan…"

Standing beside Hudson, Bronx lifted his head and whined in confusion. Not quite understanding what all the fuss was about, and annoyed that everyone was paying attention to the little picture-box instead of to his doggish queries, he finally whuffed softly and slunk back to his usual cushion by the easy chair.

oo00oo00oo

After a few more seconds of listening, "…they're not having a mating ceremony, they're having a _wedding_!" Brooklyn looked ruefully over his shoulder at Broadway as he whispered ruefully, "We owe Lex and Angela each a patrol duty…"

oo00oo00oo

"_Yes_! I knew it!" Lexington crowed as he thrust a fist into the air.

"Look! Look!" Angela was almost dancing with delight. "He's even down on his knees to ask her, just like a human male!"

"Humph!" was all Hudson said, with a not-quite-scowl crossing his expression before it gave way to wry acceptance. "Well, the lass is human…"

"Quiet! I can't hear what she's… Well, she must have said yes, or Goliath wouldn't be grinning and roaring for joy now, and twirling her around like a little hatchling!"

oo00oo00oo

Up on the roof, Broadway had dared to join Brooklyn at the vantage point and poke his head out over the edge as well, so he could see Goliath dancing with Elisa. "Aww…" he said with a foolish grin, "It's worth losing a bet with the others, just to see them so happy!"

"Yeah," Brooklyn said with a soft wistful sigh, wishing he had somebody to dance with like that. Then Goliath stopped spinning around with Elisa, and they hurriedly moved back from the edge before he came out of his obvious euphoria and spotted them. Brooklyn assumed his eavesdropping pose again as he murmured to Broadway, "I think they're setting a date now…"

And the next words out of Elisa's mouth were heard quite clearly by all the eavesdropping gargoyles without any strain, as she said loudly and incredulously, "_You want it **when**_!"

oo00oo00oo

Down in the living room, Lex, Hudson and Angela traded mystified looks. "What's she all upset about?" Lex asked. "I mean, that's plenty of time, right? The mutates just did it for _both_ couples in only a week…"

Angela shrugged back at him, just as puzzled. They listened in silence for a few more minutes as Elisa and Goliath talked back and forth, both trying to persuade the other. For every protest Elisa gave, Goliath had an answer ready, and finally she gave in and nodded, at which Goliath swept her off her feet again for another hug and kisses, before he turned towards the door to their living quarters. Lexington quickly shut down the surveillance before Goliath and Elisa could come in, and noticed just before the screen went back to his usual 'wallpaper' that two shadows had just detached from the highest turret: Brooklyn and Broadway, slipping away to sneak into the castle again, through that lower-story window they had used to sneak out in the first place.

oo00oo00oo

When Elisa came into the castle on Goliath's arm and saw the expectant looks on the faces of the gargoyles they found there, as well as the wide grins they were trying to smother, she sighed and said, "Why do I get the feeling our private conversation wasn't as private as we thought?"

Goliath gave them all a suspicious glower as well, especially Brooklyn and Broadway as they came running up with wide grins on their faces, but he was simply in too good a mood to keep it up. And whether they knew it already or not, he couldn't help bursting out, "Elisa and I are to be married!"

Everyone cheered, and congratulated them. "That's wonderful, lad!" Hudson said as he came forward with a grin.

Goliath's answering grin as he clasped forearms with his mentor was a little apologetic. "I hope you understand, old friend; a wedding seems more appropriate for us than a standard mating ceremony." He cast a quick glance at Elisa as he continued, "But perhaps we can incorporate some of our own customs into it…?"

"Should be possible, if Father Sullivan's willing," Elisa answered with a shrug. "My folks told me once that when they got married, their wedding combined some Hopi traditions in with the Baptist ceremony."

Brooklyn rubbed his beak as he mused, "So it'd be part mating ceremony, part wedding… Would you say that negates our bet?" as he turned to Lexington.

"No way!" Lex said promptly. "You two owe us one patrol duty, payable on demand."

Elisa and Goliath together gave them all the evil eye as Goliath growled, "You were placing _bets_ on our relationship!"

Chagrin was written large on the Trio's and Angela's faces, as they hastened to reassure Goliath and Elisa that no disrespect was meant. Just then, the phone in the living room rang, to the Trio's palpable relief as a means of distraction. "Och, I'll get it," Hudson said as he reached for it, since the phone was next to his favorite easy chair anyway. He sat down in it and picked up the receiver as he added, "At least, at this time of night, it's not apt to be another blasted telephone-merchant…"

Elisa stared at him, then up at Goliath. "You actually get _telemarketers_ calling you!"

"Unfortunately, yes," the clan leader growled. "Xanatos explained to us that these people have computer programs attached to their telephones that select numbers at random; the fact that this number is not listed in the phone books does not deter them. When the first one called us, one evening three weeks ago, at first we thought he was a Quarryman making veiled threats against us with such talk about death and planning for the future; Lexington nearly challenged the man to show his face to us in honest battle, before we realized that he was trying to sell us a cemetery plot."

"Geez, thanks for the reminder," Lexington groaned as he covered his face, flushing dark olive with embarrassment.

Elisa clamped her mouth shut and forced down the giggles that threatened to escape, and once she was sure she'd forced them down she laid a comforting hand on Lex's shoulder. "Hey, I get those sort of calls all the time. At least you guys don't have to worry about telemarketers interrupting your sleep…"

Just then, David and Fox Xanatos came into the living room still wearing their Armani pajamas and Versace dressing robes, and with wide smiles on their faces. "Given the joyful ruckus we heard out on the roof a few minutes ago, am I to understand some congratulations are in order?" Xanatos said hopefully.

"Goliath and Elisa are going to have a wedding!" Angela excitedly told them, either forgetting or not knowing that the bride-and-groom-to-be should have had that privilege.

Xanatos immediately turned to his wife and said with a smug smile, "Pay up."

Fox rolled her eyes as she tugged irritably at the ties to her dressing gown. "All right, all right; I hereby owe you an entire week's worth of afternoon-playtime diaper changes. Sheesh!"

Goliath and Elisa glanced ruefully at each other, then at the already married couple who owned the castle. "I take it you two had also placed bets between yourselves on our relationship?" Goliath said with a grimace. Xanatos just grinned back unrepentantly.

While they were bantering, Hudson was quietly talking and listening to the phone in his hand with a growing smile on his face. Finally he spoke a few last amiable words into it, and hung up as he announced, " 'Twas Father Sullivan calling. I gave him the good news, not that it was a surprise to him either..." Elisa blushed and half-smiled as she allowed that it probably wasn't. "The priest will be coming by here tonight at ten o'clock, to talk with me about our customs and determine how this wedding is to be done. 'Tis the first true mating ceremony for gargoyle and human, and 'twill be a right challenge to find the best way to mix our mating customs and human-style ones. I assume ye both will be wanting to be here to offer your own opinions?"

"I'd like to, but my shift starts before then," Elisa said with a troubled look. "Can you call him back and reschedule for earlier?" Then a thought stuck her, and she sighed. "Actually, tell him Goliath and I would like to see you and him together the next night, right around sunset if he can make it here that early. Because first, we've got to let my family know…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Telling her sister Beth about it was easy. Elisa merely called her sister up late that afternoon, told her that she and Goliath were getting married, then held the phone a little away from her ear as Beth crowed triumphantly, "HAH! Derek owes me a foot massage!"

Elisa sighed, "Don't tell me… you were betting on whether or not Goliath and I would get married?"

"Sis, we were betting on whether or not you'd be engaged by New Year's! So, when's the wedding?"

"A week from this Saturday. Can you make it? Goliath and I will see about getting the plane tickets mailed to you."

"…Sis, would you mind repeating that?"

"Which part, the date or the plane tickets?"

"Both. Did you say a week from Saturday? Sis, are you…"

"Yes, I said a week from Saturday, and no, unlike Maggie, I'm not 'in a family way'! F'rgodsakes, Beth, it's impossible!"

"Sis, so was going around the world in what was essentially a rowboat. But if you're not preggers, then why the rush?"

"(sigh) To Goliath, this isn't a rush, it's dragging your tail. Gargoyles don't usually have really fancy ceremonies; the two mates just stand up and say their vows to each other in front of the elders and rest of the clan, then… jump off the battlements together." Elisa decided to hold back the information about what happened after the newly mated pair jumped off the battlements; if she told Beth about mating flights, her utterly irrepressible sister would probably try to capture it on film. "Goliath wants us to have a human-style wedding for my sake, but since we were able to put together a _double_ wedding in only seven nights, he doesn't see why we can't do a single wedding in only nine nights, especially since the chapel in the Labyrinth is already set up. And since you're probably the only one who'll be coming from out of town…"

"Ah. Well, I had plans, but they're nothing I can't put off for another week. I think I can even get out of all my Friday classes after 9:00 a.m., if I talk to my professors and arrange it ahead of time. So, did you say you're going to be sending me the plane tickets?"

"Yeah. Lex is going online tonight from the castle, since he's just jumping for a chance to help out with the wedding, and he'll buy them over the Net. Would you believe that the gargoyles even have their own credit card?"

"No way! How do they pay the bills? I can't see any of them holding down a nine-to-fiver…"

"Xanatos does. And before you say anything, it bothers me too that they're becoming indebted to him like that, but as Goliath pointed out, he's already providing their food and shelter. The gargoyles just figure they've basically made an alliance pact like they had back in the Dark Ages, with the original residents of Castle Wyvern; they protect the humans by night, and the humans protect them by day." Elisa grinned wryly, though her sister couldn't see it. "With the biggest difference being that they don't also provide fresh meat for the castle's larders now, since there isn't any real game in Central Park and the Xanatos family doesn't seem to be interested in pigeon stew."

Beth snorted in amusement, then changed the subject. "So, does Goliath understand the concept of bridesmaids?"

"Yes he does, and he's already agreed to having them and groomsmen. You want to be my maid of honor?"

"Like you even have to ask? Of course I do! Hey, has he picked a best man yet?"

"Yep; Brooklyn. It would have been Hudson, but we're figuring he's going to co-conduct the ceremony itself instead."

"…Does Brooklyn know how to dance? Never mind, I'll show him a few simple steps for the reception," Beth said cheerfully. Elisa was silently amazed at how fast her sister could adapt to the idea of being partnered with a gargoyle. Beth went on, "With the short notice, I'm assuming I'll need to provide my own dress. What's the style and color scheme?"

"Uhh… I'll have to call you back tonight with that info; I haven't decided yet."

"How about lavender? After all, that's the groom's color scheme…" (and Elisa could almost _hear_ the saucy grin Beth had to be wearing just then.)

But Elisa had an answer for that one. "No, can't be lavender. Angela's already asked to be the other bridesmaid, and she's lavender already..."

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

At the same time that Elisa was talking to her sister, a meeting was taking place in Xanatos' office. Paul Manning of PM Investigations set a thick folder of notes and photographs on Xanatos' desk and said flatly, "I hope this is enough for you, because that's all you're getting from this corner."

Xanatos paused in his reach for the folder, and looked at Manning with one eyebrow cocked, as if he couldn't possibly have heard what he'd just heard. "I beg your pardon?" And there was just enough chill in the voice to make it clear to even the casual observer that he expected to hear a rephrasing of sentiments, very quickly.

So Manning rephrased it for him. "After this, I'm out of here. I quit. No more work on this case. Clear enough?"

"Quite," and the chill in Xanatos' voice could have frozen his espresso coffee. "May I ask why?"

"Because, Mr. Xanatos, as very fond of your money as I have become, I am even more fond of breathing."

That changed Xanatos' attitude in a hurry. "Has someone threatened you in regards to this case?" he asked sharply, as he flipped open the folder lying on the desk. In it were dozens of photographs of people, with pages of notes about each person clipped to his or her photograph. Most of the people pictured were wearing Quarrymen uniforms, taken at one of their rallies.

"Overt threats, no. But after the last meeting I attended, I started getting The Tingle." At Xanatos' expression, he explained, "You can call it a well-honed survival instinct; sometimes I get a tingle in the back of my brain, letting me know when I'm getting in too deep and the water's nearly over my head. I've learned to pay attention to that tingle, Xanatos. It's saved my skin more than once. My cousin Cleon didn't pay attention to his instincts until too late, and the case he was working on for another very rich businessman ended with me breaking the news of his untimely demise to his widow."

"I see," Xanatos said grimly. He gestured at the photographs again. "Would you mind telling me which of the individuals pictured here was setting off your… Tingle?"

"Which two of them," Manning corrected. He pointed to two of the photographs. "One of them is our head cheerleader, Jon Canmore/Carter/Castaway himself. The other is this man," as he pointed to another photograph, of a seemingly middle-aged man with aquiline features and silver-gray hair. "Oliver Grimm. He's definitely a major bankroller for the Quarrymen, and the main supplier of their weaponry. The two of them left together from the last Q-rally, and I was starting to follow their limo when the Tingle came on fast and strong. Strong enough that I broke off the tail on the spot, and I've been lying low for the past few nights while typing up everything to give to you. Best guess is, one of them was beginning to suspect that 'Michael Pennington' wasn't quite as enthusiastic a member of the Q-men as I've been portraying for the past six weeks, and they were thinking about taking action. Regardless of which one is the worst threat, I'm taking a vacation as soon as I walk out these doors."

Xanatos nodded slowly. "Very well, we'll call your work finished. See my secretary for your final check." Paul Manning nodded, and walked back out the office doors while Xanatos began looking over the notes the private detective had typed up during his limited investigation of Oliver Grimm. After a short while he looked up, unsurprised to see Owen Burnett standing there. "PM Investigations has pulled out, but we've gotten some good information about the Quarrymen out of him; enough for a start."

Owen nodded. "And your next course of action, sir?"

Xanatos separated out the photos and sheets of papers. "For the moment, we'll leave the small fry alone and concentrate on Jonny-boy himself, his lieutenants and the Q-men's bankrollers. Since Paul was clever enough to obtain a list of addresses to go with most of the names, I think we'll start by finding out which of these people have outstanding arrest warrants, and do our bit to extend the reach of the long arm of the law." He frowned. "Pity that probably won't work for Jonny-boy himself."

"Indeed, sir," Owen said blandly. "His current habit of changing his place of dwelling every week is most inconsiderate of him."

Xanatos shot him a dirty look, then picked up the photo and notes for Oliver Grimm. "This one we'll give special treatment to. I want to know everything you can dig up on Oliver Grimm, CEO of Kreuzung Technology, and his corporation. Stock reports, IRS returns, employee satisfaction surveys, the works. I'm just willing to bet we'll find something we can use to our advantage…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

After calling Beth came notifying Elisa's brother and sister-in-law, and making sure they could use the chapel in the Labyrinth for the wedding. Once Goliath had awoken and come to her apartment to pick her up, they went together to the Labyrinth. Elisa quietly mused to Goliath as they walked through the tunnels on their way to the central chambers, "At least Derek and Maggie already know about our (ahem) intimacy, even if Derek wasn't too thrilled for us. Compared to telling my parents, this should be easy…"

Goliath seemed about to say something, but chose not to, as they came into the central kitchen. As luck would have it, all the mutates and Claw's wife Dana were all in there together, amiably arguing over who had the better chili recipe. Derek spotted his sister and called out as he waved a spoon, "Hey, Sis! Come over here and settle an argument for us. Which of these two kinds of chili tastes better?"

Elisa took a deep breath. "Sure, Derek! I'll be happy to taste-test… After Goliath and I tell you what we came down here for."

All of them looked at the couple questioningly as Derek said, "Okay, fire away."

Elisa took another deep breath, then said, "Goliath and I are getting married." Then she waited for their reaction.

The reaction was immediate, though not quite what she had expected. Claw grinned widely, showing his fangs, as he dropped his spoon back into his chili, turned to Derek and held his hand out in an unmistakable gesture: "pay up."

"All right, all right; I hereby owe you one gliding escort duty," Derek sighed as he rolled his eyes. "And I owe Beth a foot massage next time she's in town…"

Elisa rolled her eyes as well as she groaned, "Has _everybody_ been betting on us tying the knot!"

Maggie hid a felinoid smile behind her hand as she explained, "I didn't, but Claw and Dana made a bet with Derek, after your sister made one with him before going back to Arizona. Beth bet him that you would be making an announcement before New Year's Day, but Claw and Dana were sure it would come before Thanksgiving… Have you set a date yet?"

Goliath and Elisa told them the date they'd chosen… then had to explain that _no_, they weren't expecting a winged bundle of joy of their own already… And before they left, they had determined that both Elisa and Dana favored Derek's chili recipe (hot-hot) while Goliath and Maggie favored Claw's (mild, with more meat in it), and they had arranged for the wedding to be held in the Labyrinth's chapel next Saturday night. As they headed back out again, Elisa sighed and leaned on Goliath's arm as she said, "This is going so smoothly, it's almost scary."

Goliath blinked at her. "Why would it be scary?" Then he looked worried. "Elisa, if you are having second thoughts, please say so before we--"

"No, I'm not having second thoughts," Elisa said hastily. "But weddings _never_ go off without some complications; it's one of those corollaries of Murphy's Law, like the checkout line in the supermarket next to your line will always move faster, until you get into it." At Goliath's mystified look, she just shook her head and said, "Just take my word for it. Sooner or later, we're going to run into a real problem. And maybe sooner than you think, because we still have to tell my parents…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Picture this: a three-bedroom rambler in the middle of the suburbs; the sort of home that millions of perfectly ordinary families have raised their children in. Though the house is nearly silent, lights still shine through a few of the windows, indicating the inhabitants are still awake. And though no one is outside in the back yard, the back porch light is on.

Now come the soft whooshing sounds of massive leathery wings slicing through the night air, and the soft thump of a landing on the grass in the back yard. The dark shape just landed resolves itself into a massive gargoyle silently setting his human passenger down on her feet. The faint sound of a nervous swallow issues from her throat as she walks up to the back door, and hesitantly knocks on it.

The back door opens, and a late-middle-aged man with skin the shade of bronze and stern aquiline features looks out. He eyes his visitors for only a moment before silently ushering them inside. The human and gargoyle both square their shoulders and stiffen their spines before walking in through the back door. Once the door is closed, the back porch light is switched off, and all is quiet and still once more.

And two minutes later the quiet is broken by a voice wafting out through one of the windows, a feminine voice wailing, "Has _everybody_ been putting bets on us?"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Half an hour later, Goliath dropped Elisa off in the alley right next to where her Fairlane was parked, so she could jump in and drive to work. "I'll give you a shout on the car radio once I've gotten Matt away from the stationhouse," Elisa said as she lifted her face up to gave him a quick kiss before running out of the alley.

Goliath turned the quick kiss into a slightly longer and more thorough one, and greatly enjoyed the slightly flushed and flustered look on Elisa's face when he finally let her go. "I'll be waiting," he rumbled as she ran.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Three hours later, Matt looked across his desk at his partner, who'd been fidgeting for the past few hours whenever she wasn't typing furiously, and made a decision. "C'mon, partner, we're going to lunch," he said loudly as he grabbed his coat.

Elisa jumped up like a spring had erupted under her chair, and grabbed her jacket as she said, "Greatidealet'sgo!" And was almost out the door before the last syllable crossed her lips.

Unfortunately, they weren't quite fast enough to escape Captain Chavez, who stepped out of her office and barked, "Maza! Bluestone! Are those files ready for review yet!"

"Almost, Captain!" Bluestone called out, after glimpsing the naked frustration on Elisa's face. "They'll be finished right after we get back from lunch!"

Chavez gave them both the evil eye that had earned her the moniker "The Dragon Lady" among the less respectful members of the precinct, even before she'd become a captain. "Don't you mean, _before_ lunch?"

"Aw, Captain, you know I'm just a touch hypoglycemic!" Matt improvised on the spot. "If I don't get something to eat soon, my concentration will be shot, and I won't be good for much of anything!"

"And if my stomach growls any louder, the boys in the K-9 Unit will hear it and start joking about a mastiff in myguts again!" Elisa pleaded with her, almost dancing in place like a little kid in her eagerness to be on her way.

Chavez eyed them both keenly, then ordered, "Make it a _fast_ lunch!" before returning to her office.

Matt promised they would, then almost sprinted to catch up with Elisa. Once they were in her car and pulling away from the station, he asked her, "Now that we're alone, just what the heck has been eating you all night? You've had the proverbial ants in your pants ever since the captain laid down the law about having our cases ready for review tonight!"

But instead of answering him directly, Elisa reached for the police radio mounted in her dashboard and switched it to the special setting Lexington had built into it when he'd modified it some time ago: the frequency she used for communicating with the gargoyles. "Goliath, we're outside now! I'm sorry, the captain had us tied up in paperwork… Where are you now?"

"Gliding directly over your car," Goliath's voice growled out of the dash, sounding more than a little annoyed. "Just pull into that alley up ahead on the right…"

"He's been waiting for us to come out for hours," Elisa moaned as she obediently pulled into the alley on the right side of the street. "Why did the captain have to pick _tonight_ to be anal about our paperwork!"

"Probably because we've been neglecting it lately, and setting a bad example for the rookies," Matt said honestly as she stopped the car. "So what's up with the clan?"

Instead of answering immediately, Elisa got out and ran up to where Goliath was just coming down with a much heavier than normal thump, probably a way of expressing his displeasure at being kept waiting so long. Then they hugged, and Matt could almost see the tension oozing out of his broad shoulders as he snuggled her close, and the lines of strain likewise easing from her face. To draw such comfort from each other's embrace... He felt another jolt of jealousy, just as he'd felt nearly two weeks ago when he'd first realized they'd become lovers, but forced it down again. Elisa was his partner, dammit, no more and no less…

After a short while they broke apart from their hug and turned to him with a smile. "Come on over, Matt," Elisa called to him softly. "We've got news for you!"

"Are you sure?" Matt said warily, not yet moving from where he'd been standing the whole time they'd been hugging; right up against the Fairlane with one hand on the door handle, ready to duck back inside if he had to. "Remember what happened last time I came up to you two when you were hugging…" He himself remembered the incident all too vividly; for a few moments Goliath had looked and sounded like he wanted to rip one Matthew J. Bluestone into lots of little bite-size pieces.

Elisa blushed bright red and Goliath a deep purple, both obviously remembering the incident he'd been referring to. Matt had never gotten an adequate explanation for that, either; all they ever told him was that it had been 'a gargoyle thing'. "Matt, I assure you, that won't happen tonight," Goliath said, still blushing as he beckoned.

So he came over to them, and once he was within arm's reach of them, they dropped their bombshell. "Goliath and I are getting married," Elisa said with a smile as she rested her head against Goliath's huge biceps.

"And as our clan's next closest human friend, I would choose you to be one of my 'groomsmen', if you are willing," Goliath said with a wide grin.

All the breath whooshed out of Matt's lungs for a moment; some tiny corner of his mind wondered if this is what it would feel like if Evander Holyfield really had just given him a one-two to the guts. They were getting _married_! …And Goliath wanted _him_ to be a groomsman! "Uhhh…. L-let me think about this for a moment, okay?"

"Of course," Goliath nodded.

Elisa smiled wryly as she looked at his undoubtedly stunned expression, and then said quietly to Goliath, "At least here's one person who hasn't been betting on us…"

After a few seconds, Matt took a deep breath, and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, why not? Sure, I'll be a groomsman. So, have you guys set a date yet?"

Elisa told him, "A week from this Saturday. …Dammit, Matt, get that expression off your face! No, I am _not_ pregnant!"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Even though Elisa and Goliath could not attend to offer their opinions, Father Sullivan came to the castle for a talk with Hudson anyway. As Lexington typed busily away in the computer alcove, surfing the Net to find and buy the best round-trip plane tickets for Beth Maza, the priest and the clan elder sat down together with fresh hot tea to discuss the ceremony. "In a way, it's probably preferable that they not be here for this first meeting," Father Sullivan said with a wry smile. "It's best that we get our own inevitable arguing out of the way first, before they add to the clamor. If we can present them tomorrow night with our own suggestions for merging customs, and let them decide from that what will suit them and what needs changing, it may all go more smoothly."

Hudson eyed the priest with some surprise while absently reaching down to pet Bronx, who had given up on trying to get Lex to play tug-of-war with him and slumped back onto his cushion by the chair. "Ye say 'tis inevitable for us to argue? So far, I dinna think either of us has said a cross word to the other."

"Before now, my friend, we were merely learning of each other's cultures, and that was mostly on my part. I've been through something like this before, several years ago, when a young lady from my flock wed a young Jewish fellow, and his rabbi and I co-officiated the wedding. Rabbi Schulman and I had already been good acquaintances, long before the couple became engaged, and we'd studied and respected each other's traditions. But all weddings are emotionally charged times, and I'm afraid Ben Schulman and I had more than our share of disagreeable moments as we tried to merge our two ceremonies, with both Caroline and Aaron alternately insisting that this custom or that _had_ to be observed, then insisting that their intended's wishes were more important in the very next breath. And then the _mothers _of the bride and groom got involved…" Father Sullivan shook his head with a wry smile on his face. "Before it was over, it wasn't only the _fathers_ of Aaron and Caroline who were willing to buy those two plane tickets to Las Vegas, if they chose to elope instead!"

Hudson chuckled in appreciation. "Aye, I can understand that. To my way of thinking, the simpler the plan, the less chance there is of something going wrong. Though 'twas a right beautiful ceremony ye did for the mutate couples last month…"

Father Sullivan accepted the praise with due modesty, then asked, "You told me in our third talk that Goliath and Elisa aren't really the first inter-species pairing; that you knew of at least one other pair back in the Dark Ages who had forged a relationship. What sort of ceremony did they have?"

Hudson shook his head. "They didn't. The two I told you of kept their meetings very quiet, for fear of public disapproval; aye, nearly everyone in the clan knew about it, but we never _said_ we knew, if ye catch my meaning." The priest said he did. "Back then, the humans of Castle Wyvern were slow to accept us, and many feared us and cursed us as beasts. If they had found out about those two, they would likely have looked upon them with even more disapproval than the clan. Moreover, I'm thinking now that their relationship wasn't as… as deep as Goliath and Elisa have gone. The two back then were lonely souls seeking sex an' companionship, but I dinna believe they truly bonded, not like Goliath and Elisa have done; didn't truly become mates to each other. Our two, now… I tell ye true, whatever ceremony we make for them will be a mere formality. They're already mates, in heart and mind and body, an' maybe even in soul for all I can tell."

Father Sullivan nodded, then looked around the room. Only Lexington and Bronx were present besides themselves, and Lex was immersed in his activities on the Net; still, Father Sullivan lowered his voice before asking, "And does all the clan fully accept them as mates?"

"Of course!" Hudson chuckled, "The younger lads and lass even had bets between themselves, as to what sort of ceremony Goliath and Elisa would choose! No worries on that score. I'm not so sure as to what Elisa's blood-relations will say to it, but… Ye must understand, to us, Elisa isn't just a human ally; she's _clan_. She's proven herself to us many times over, and even if she and Goliath were only friends, she'd still be clan to us, as much a one of us as if she still had her wings and tail."

Father Sullivan nodded and smiled, and took another sip of tea… and paused, with the teacup still at his lips. After a few seconds, he said, "Pardon me, but did I hear correctly? Did you say, 'as if she _still_ had her wings and tail'?"

Hudson grimaced. "Aye, ye heard right. 'Tis a long story…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

The castle had another visitor before dawn, one they had been told to expect just a few hours before. Diane Maza arrived with her sewing kit and a determined expression, and immediately went to work. Just before the sun was due to peep over the horizon, she told Goliath with some exasperation, "No, no… If you're going to insist on doing it _this_ way, then you're going to have to hold your left arm like _this_, and flex your right arm like _this_!" as she stood on the castle roof and shoved Goliath's limbs this way and that. "And lift that leg up again!"

Standing on the battlements, the rest of the clan fought hard to contain their snickers as they watched their leader standing in the middle of the roof instead of his usual high perch, staring bewilderingly at the comparatively tiny woman shoving him around like she was positioning an oversized department store mannequin. "But I don't understand why you--" he began again, as he tried to balance on just one foot and his tail while holding the other foot up in mid-step.

"Because I want this outfit to fit right the _first_ time, not have to be refitted three or more times, and the clothing I'm making has to take all of a gargoyle's normal movements into account or you'll end up bursting seams at the worst possible moment! All right, that should do it. Now _hold still_!"

"You can do it, Father," Angela called out encouragingly from her pose, which was admittedly much simpler than Goliath's. All she'd had to do was stand back from the edge and hold her arms outstretched and wings slightly flared, presumably because her bridesmaid outfit would have a full skirt to cover her legs instead of trousers.

"Better do as she says, Goliath," Brooklyn said, unable to keep the grin off his face. (He'd been able to fast-talk his way out of posing for a groomsman outfit, by pointing out that if this wedding was to be a mixture of human and gargoyle traditions, at least one member of the party should be wearing traditional gargoyle clothes for the occasion.) "I hear it's real bad news to get on the bad side of your future mother-in-law…"

"Very, very true. Take it from one who knows," Xanatos said wryly, from where he was leaning against the entrance to the gargoyle living quarters. Although, considering his mother-in-law was Queen of the Fey, his case was a little more extreme than Goliath's…

Holding still as ordered by Diane, in a pose that looked more ridiculous than fearsome on the giant gargoyle, Goliath dared to turn his head just enough to give Xanatos a killer glare and a growling, "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"_Moi_?" as Xanatos gave him a wide-eyed look and a hand placed on his chest in a shocked manner. And the sun rose just then, freezing the tableau in place just as Xanatos admitted with a wicked grin, "I'm _taping_ this."

"Humph!" as Diane gave Xanatos a raised eyebrow, but said nothing more to him directly. "Well, this should do," she muttered as she pulled her measuring tape and notepad out of her pockets and began taking measurements for Goliath's wedding attire. Owen had already quietly brought a small stepladder and a roll of masking tape up for her use, so she could reach Goliath's shoulders with ease and stick one end of the measuring tape in place as necessary for tricky measurements.

"Stone sleep does has its advantages," Xanatos mused aloud from where he was watching. "Because this is the only way the 'Big Guy' would ever hold still for inseam measurements…"

Diane paused in her measurements, and gave Xanatos a pointed look. "Don't you have a multinational corporation to run? Because if not, anyone still here and in flesh five seconds from now is going to be drafted as my assistant…"

Xanatos hastily departed.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Shortly after arriving in his office, Xanatos was mildly surprised to be notified that 'Lennox MacDuff' was calling him on an office line. "To what do I owe the honor?" he inquired after being connected.

"To the People for Interspecies Tolerance, of course," MacBeth informed him. "I trust you've already heard the tape of the last meeting…"

Xanatos flushed dull red as he admitted, "Yes, I have." He'd heard the recording MacBeth had secretly made of the meeting, and sent to the Aerie Building by special courier later that night. The recording had been made largely so the entire clan could listen to the half-truths, misdirections and white lies Brooklyn had spun about the clan's recent history, and keep their stories straight in the future. The truth had been altered not only to avoid the subject of Demona's immortality (which was shared by the man currently calling himself Lennox MacDuff), but to avoid the question of exactly why Xanatos' two-year-long… _disagreement_ with the gargoyle clan had abruptly ended on the night his son was born. Xanatos himself had requested Brooklyn to do what he could to avoid that last question, as the brick-red gargoyle had gleefully pointed out afterwards, so he really had no basis to complain about the resulting impression of him that Brooklyn had left in the minds of the P.I.T. members. But if he heard _one more _smart remar_k_ about the dangers of getting drunk with business partners, or if his wife teased him _one more time_ about his penchant for being duped or outmaneuvered by redheads of either species….! He forced himself to unclench his jaw, then said wearily, "If you're calling to tease me about supposedly waking up in bed with a hooker and a hangover, I warn you in advance I've heard seven different variations on that joke already, and I am _not_ in the mood for #8."

MacBeth snorted in amusement. "That's not why I called, though now I'm tempted to make an attempt at #8 anyway. Count yourself lucky that I'm calling between classes, so I'm forced to keep this short. And in short, the P.I.T. could do with a corporate sponsor, and you seem the logical choice for it."

"Money for making pamphlets and commercials and for renting meeting halls, hm? I'll be glad to. How much do you want for a start, one million or two million? And what's the bank account number?"

"Ah, we're putting the cart a bit before the horse. While I'm currently actively helping the founders of the P.I.T., I prefer to keep a low profile where possible; that's why, beyond renting the meeting hall for the first few meetings, I shan't be spending any of my own fortune on their cause. And questions would be raised about how a lowly college professor was able to acquire so much money from a corporate giant with a single phone call."

Xanatos conceded he had a point. "So, you expect some of the students to do this the hard way by going up the corporate ladder of Xanatos Enterprises, but you're calling to make sure I make it relatively easy for them?"

"Precisely."

"Not a problem. I'll discreetly let the receptionists downstairs know to give their call or letter a high priority, and where to direct them to for an appointment with a gargoyle-friendly department head. Anything else?"

MacBeth chuckled. "Not unless you can recommend a supplier of rotten tomatoes on short notice."

"…Beg pardon?"

"It seems that, due to my popularity with my students, I've been invited as a last-minute replacement for a sick colleague, to be a judge for tonight's poetry reading: the 11th Annual Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest."2

"That's_ tonight?_"

"Ah, you've heard of it?" MacBeth's voice held a trace of amusement, at the note of sheer horror in Xanatos' tone.

Xanatos shuddered, though MacBeth couldn't see it. "The 1993 winners gave me nightmares for a week. My assistant Owen Burnett occasionally has a cruel streak; he takes perverse delight in attending the readings, and regaling me with word-for-word recitals of the year's winning entries when I'm stuck doing something important and can't escape." It was the one time of the year that Owen openly let his Puckish nature out to play… "Thanks for the advance warning; now I just have to find a good reason to ship him out of the country for a few days before 5 p.m."

MacBeth was still laughing when he hung up.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Another phone conversation was taking place across town, in the headquarters for Nightstone Corporation. Dominique Destine had arrived in her office a short while ago, in what her employees had determined (very, very quietly, never speaking above whispers even in the break room) was her habitual foul mood, but now she was smiling as she took her phone call. But it was not a very nice smile… "You're quite certain of this?" She asked her caller. "If I find even a single detail wrong… Mister Fanchon, you _are_ staking your life on it. And possibly your family's as well; am I clear enough? …Very well. You'll find half of your payment wired to your account by noon today; the rest will follow after verification of your work." Then she hung up, and smiled nastily again.

Fanchon was a weasel through and through, detestable even as professional corporate spies went, but she had to admit his services had so far proven to be worth every penny they cost. It remained to be seen if his latest information was accurate, but if it was, Dominique might even include a bonus with the rest of his payment, for him to enjoy as he would… in the few days before he died. Along with the rest of his verminous breed, and all of humanity…

When Demona had last attempted to wipe out all of humanity, by using the bonding spell she'd found on the Medici Tablet to magically bond Sevarius' CV-1000 carrier virus to an industrial-strength cleanser three times more powerful than pure bleach, she had sought to create something so strong and lethal that it would destroy any living creature it came in contact with, in mere minutes. Only the gargoyles would have remained unaffected… if only that cursed fool Goliath hadn't smashed the one item that protected them from extinction, the Praying Gargoyle that had been created by a gargoyle mage from the long-deceased Paris clan. (Oh, Valjean! Why hadn't he listened to her, and not returned to Notre Dame! His trust in the priests had led to his entire clan being destroyed…) Once Goliath had smashed that sacred relic, Demona could no longer release the magically bonded 'purification virus'; not when it would mean her only living daughter dying right before her eyes…

She had only realized later that there really was no need for such dramatics, no need for a magically bonded virus that would kill every living thing, solely in order to rid the world of humanity. There were a number of diseases out there that were ultimately fatal to humans, but only to humans, and currently had no known cure. Many of them were so very lethal that they had better than a 90 mortality rate within the first week of exposure. Their only drawback was that most of them tended to have limited contagion capabilities; they could be successfully transmitted only by contact with body fluids such as blood or saliva. But Demona had the remedy for that; she had used only half of Sevarius' prepared stock of CV-1000 carrier virus in creating the 'purification virus'. All she really had to do was bond a sufficient quantity of CV-1000 to any one of those diseases, release it into the atmosphere, and wait for the casualty reports to start rolling in. And she wouldn't even need to track down the Medici Tablet, which had been left behind at St. Damien's after the final confrontation with Goliath and the Hunters, and had been missing from the rubble when she'd gone searching for it after her return to New York. No, for bonding the carrier to another organic virus, she would need only the services of Herr Doctor Sevarius again, to do a little genetic splicing. That, and a decent sample of a sufficiently lethal virus… Such as Ebola. And according to Fanchon, the CCDR (Center for Communicable Disease Research) at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons had recently received a shipment of Ebola from the National Center for Disease Control. They had received a controlled quantity of the lethal virus in hopes that the more brilliant minds among them could contribute to the nation's work for developing a working vaccine. It was really too bad for them that Demona had other plans for their sample…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Friday afternoon, Owen came into Xanatos' office with a dark blue folder in his hands. "The PR Department just reported that the P.I.T. has officially called for an appointment, and has been granted one with the head of Public Relations for 9:30 a.m. on Monday. And here is the information you requested on Oliver Grimm and Kreuzung Technologies, sir."

"Excellent, Owen," Xanatos said as he hung up the phone and gestured for the folder. "Let's see it." With any luck, Owen had unearthed some information on Grimm and his corporation that Xanatos could use in his campaign to reduce the threat of the Quarrymen to the clan. Every organization needed money for one thing or another, and hampering their cash supply was a good way to slow them down. Mr. Grimm would probably find himself too preoccupied to keep financing the Quarrymen's rallies and weaponry if he had to deal with a hostile takeover, an IRS audit and perhaps a little trouble with the local unions all at the same time…

Owen handed over the folder, but his face held an ever-so-slight frown on it, which wold probably have been an outright scowl on any other man. "I believe you should pay close attention to the first photograph in the folder, sir."

"Why?" Xanatos asked, even as he studied the photo. "What's so special about--ah. I see," and he did. The photo in question, evidently taken at a charity function a few years ago, showed a small pin on Grimm's lapel. A pin in the shape of a pyramid, with a tiny jeweled eye at the top. "Did you confirm this?"

"Yes, sir. It's legitimate."

Xanatos scowled. "Damn. If he's a member of the Illuminati…"

"Direct action against him or his holdings can not be undertaken without approval from the current Grandmaster for this continent," Owen finished as he adjusted his glasses. "Otherwise, there would be… repercussions."

Xanatos didn't have to ask what the repercussions would be; he already knew. In worst-case scenario, he and his family would be found in pieces strewn over most of NYC; however, it was more likely that they'd simply find themselves bankrupted virtually overnight. The Brotherhood of the Illuminati took their ties of membership very seriously. After a few moments in thought, he looked up again. "So direct action against him is out. But very, very indirect action that can't be traced back to us… See what you can find in here that's worthy of the attention of the IRS." Then a thought struck him. "No, cancel that, I'll do it myself this weekend. Owen, I need you to pack your bags for a weekend trip, as of about five minutes ago."

"Sir?"

"We've got troubles in India, and I want you to take a firsthand look at them over the weekend. Here's what we've found so far, and I've got a gut feeling it's only the tip of the iceberg," as he picked up a green folder and handed it to him. "Be my eyes and ears over there, and see what more you can uncover and deal with. You have virtually full discretion, up to firing and hiring as needed. I've got an XE jet fueled and ready for you to leave within the hour."

Owen accepted the folder, but his eyebrows were raised. "This is rather short notice, sir. What have you uncovered?"

"It's all in the folder, Owen. I'd go myself, but Fox made me promise that I'd stay here this weekend. I think she has _plans_ for me on Sunday," he said with a waggle of his eyebrows.

"I see," Owen said with a perfectly straight face. "Very well, sir. I shall depart immediately," and he turned around and walked out of the office.

Once he was gone, Xanatos leaned back in his chair and gave a sigh of relief. It had taken him the better part of the day to find a crisis in their organization that really was large enough to barely, just barely warrant flying Owen out on such short notice. But it was worth the expense of the trip, and the disruption to his household's weekend schedule, to be assured of no abysmal poetry readings being sprung on him sometime in the next few weeks…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Friday evening, Father Sullivan came over again immediately after sunset, and he and Hudson gave the happy couple their views on how a combined gargoyle-human wedding ceremony might be conducted. To everyone's quiet relief, the ceremony Hudson and Father Sullivan had worked out was acceptable to both Goliath and Elisa without a quibble. "This should satisfy even my mom," Elisa mused with a half-smile as she looked over the 'script' for the ceremony that Father Sullivan had written down the night before.

"Do you think this will, too?" Lexington said as he scampered over to them with a sheet of stiff white paper in his hand and a hopeful expression.

Elisa accepted it to find it was a wedding invitation, announcing the wedding of Elisa Maza to Goliath of Wyvern, and giving the date, time and place. "This looks pretty good, Lex! Did you make it?"

"Yeah, I've got a Printshop program on the computer that's great for stuff like this. Owen left a stack of the special paper and envelopes for them by my printer, before he left on his trip this afternoon… Oh, and you should see this website I found last night! It's a gold and jewelry dealer, that sells custom-made wedding rings!"

"Excellent work, Lexington," Goliath said with warm approval. His expression turned rueful as he admitted, "I had wondered how we would manage the choosing of rings, since we can hardly walk into a jewelry story together."

"Not to mention, the average jeweler isn't going to have rings in your size in stock," Elisa said wryly as she caressed the back of his enormous hand, over twice the size of hers. "Well, Lex, let's take a look at this website…"

In less than half an hour, they had surveyed the website and decided on the style of ring they wanted—a golden band with an engraving of a Celtic braid running down the center—and Lexington was measuring Goliath's and Elisa's fingers by wrapping them with a piece of string and making marks with a pen, and holding the marked string against a ruler. "And it only costs an extra ten percent of the total, for a rush order that'll be done and delivered in time for the wedding," Lexington said happily as he typed in their measurements, and the numbers for the credit card that had been issued to 'G.G. Wyvern'. (The G.G. stood for Garth Goyle; even Xanatos occasionally had a weakness for puns.)

"And once the invitations are printed up, we can begin delivering them," Goliath said with a smile. It was as he'd told Elisa, shortly after they'd set their wedding date; with all the clan not only approving of their mating but helping them with the ceremony, the wedding would run as smoothly as fine linen. Elisa really had nothing to worry about…

"If you like, I'll be happy to take your invitations to the Labyrinth with me, when I visit there tomorrow night," Father Sullivan said from where he and Hudson were still enjoying their tea.

"When _we_ visit there," Hudson corrected genially. "Bronx has been acting a bit testy lately, and I'm thinking he needs another visit with Delilah." Lying on his cushion by Hudson's chair, Bronx lifted his head at the mention of his name, and whuffed as if in agreement with Hudson.

Just then, Broadway called everyone, including their guests, in to the dinner he had put together; a good hearty beef-vegetable stew and home-baked biscuits, just the sort of hot filling meal to enjoy before a long night of patrols or police business, or after a hard day of running a multinational corporation or minding two magic-wielding children. Father Sullivan gave the meal high marks as well, before departing for his own home.

Soon after nearly everyone had departed, for patrols or their own pursuits, Broadway went back into the kitchen to serve himself one last helping of stew before putting the rest into containers to refrigerate, and noticed to his mild surprise and pleasure that Angela had gotten up to follow him. He smiled widely at her as she drew near, quoting, "'She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies…' Would you like another bowl, too?" as he lifted the lid off the stewpot.

Angela had smiled one of the sweetest smiles he'd ever seen on her face when he'd quoted Lord Byron to her, but then she hastily stepped forward and laid her hand over his, to keep him from lifting the lid all the way off. "Thank you so much, Broadway, my dear… But I don't need another bowl of stew. And… and are you really sure _you_ need it?"

"Huh?" he stared at her in surprise and confusion.

"Did you want another bowl because you're _hungry_… or just because you like to eat?"

"Well…"

"Because if you're really, truly hungry, then by all means have another bowl, but otherwise… You see, my dear Broadway," as she looked soulfully into his eyes, "this ceremony for my father and Elisa has given me reason to think lately, and I'm concerned about the future. Hudson and Demona both told me what happens to females during the Breeding Moon…" She let go of the lid and backed slowly away, her gaze still locked to his as she continued, "When I awaken that night with my blood singing in my veins, I'm going to want to fly as far and fast as possible; it's instinctive, and for the first breeding season the instinct is overpowering. So it's going to be up to my mate to catch me…" She turned around then, and looked over her shoulder at him as her tail swayed invitingly. "Do you think you could catch me, Broadway dear?"

YOWZA! Broadway dropped the lid with a clatter and started to reach for her, then stopped with his eyes bulging—_oops_!—and hurriedly brought his wings forward and down to hide the tent forming in his loincloth. "Oh, honey, you'd better believe I'll catch you!"

"Are you sure?" Angela abruptly lost her coquettish air, and turned around to face him again, her wings caped and her face deadly serious. "Because right now, I can fly rings around you."

Broadway felt like he'd just been smacked in the face with a wet dishcloth.

Angela continued, "Dear heart, it truly pains me to say this, but you really need to lose some weight before next autumn. Not just for my sake, but for the sake of _our_ future…"

_She said 'our future'_…Broadway swallowed hard, then stepped forward and reached a hand out for hers, his wings shivering with emotion and his heart beating triple-time. "Angela… Just so we're both clear on this… are you saying that you're choosing me?"

Angela put her hand in his, and smiled… and said, "_After_ you lose some weight."

Broadway's heart dropped towards his toe-talons. "H-how much weight?"

"Oh, not a great deal of weight… just, say, eighty pounds or so…"

"_Eighty pounds_!"

Angela smiled. "Broadway, you could lift that much weight with your smallest talon! Surely you can lose that much, if you really put your mind to it… A few extra laps around the city every night, cutting back on the extra helpings… I'll be glad to help you out in any way I can!" She scooted a little closer, her breasts almost brushing his chest as she murmured, "And after you've lost enough weight, after we're sure you can keep up with me, we'll have a wonderful mating ceremony…"

Broadway swallowed hard again. "Promise?"

"Promise." And she lifted her face to his, with her lips parted ever-so-slightly…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

When Hudson came through the doorway a few moments later, he found them kissing while the stew bubbled merrily away. He smiled, and silently backed out again, to sit down in his favorite chair in the living room. He kept half an eye on the door while flipping through channels on the TV, and so he noticed when Broadway came through the door a little while later. He expected the young gargoyle to be grinning from ear to ear, so he was astonished to see how Broadway's tail was dragging and his head was hanging low. "Lad, what's wrong wi' ye tonight?"

Broadway heaved a great sigh, sounding as if all the troubles in the world had settled onto his blue-green shoulders. "Angela's put me on a diet."

"She… what?" For a fleeting instant, Hudson wondered if his hearing was deteriorating like his eyesight had been.

"She says we can't have the mating ceremony until after I lose some weight, so we can be sure I'll be able to catch her during the breeding season. So now I gotta lose at least eighty pounds before next autumn…"

Somewhat stunned, Hudson sat back in his chair and considered. For a moment he thought he'd better have a talk with Angela; she'd apparently gotten the wrong impression from their talks about the breeding season, when she had questions about it not long after arriving in Manhattan and Goliath had been too embarrassed to answer her. And Broadway had apparently not picked up on a few of the subtleties of breeding flights, even after witnessing not one but _two_ of the Wyvern Clan's breeding seasons. (That wasn't altogether a surprise, though, considering that the normal one had happened when the lad and his rookery siblings had still been hatchlings, and they'd had no mates to join in the one triggered by the Night of Two Moons, the one that had nearly taken everybody by surprise. Thank the Dragon that at least that one pair of watchbeasts had known and shown them ahead of time, as watchbeasts always do, or that unexpected breeding season would have thrown the clan into an even worse turmoil than it had.)

Aye, Angela would be instinctively driven to fly as far and as fast as she could during her season, but a female could override those instincts to some small extent; just enough to slow down a little, if her mate had a slower-speed wing configuration. Female web-wings nearly always had to slow down a trifle, unless they were mated to web-winged males. Not to mention, Broadway's wider wingspan and deeper chest meant he had more endurance for gliding than Angela; he could just stay on her tail until she tired and slowed down, though considering how much energy a female had when the Breeding Moon arose it would be a long, _long_ chase. Broadway didn't need to go on a diet so much as they needed to have a few practice chases.

But then… the lad really did have a lot of excess weight on his frame. Nearly everyone in the clan had commented on it from time to time, but so long as Broadway was reasonably effective as a warrior--and he was--they had let the matter slide rather than take action. But if Angela had come up with motivation for Broadway to seriously try to lose weight… "Well, lad, if ye've only got till next autumn, then ye'd better start tonight. And ye can start with a lap or two around the entire island…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Saturday night, the Cyberbiotics Air Fortress II was on station out over the Atlantic Ocean, three miles out from Manhattan, conducting testing on remote-piloted bathyspheres and robotic deep-sea explorers, and producing precise and detailed maps of the ocean floor. Halcyon Renard looked up from the monitor currently showing the remains of a century-old shipwreck, when another monitor beeped for his attention; radar had picked up on objects approaching the airship. He studied that monitor, blinked, and looked again as he saw a hang-glider and two gargoyles gliding together out to the Air Fortress.

"It appears to be the gargoyle Goliath, another gargoyle and your daughter, sir," Preston Vogel said in his usual emotionless voice.

"And the smaller gargoyle… has my grandson strapped to his back!" Renard said as he stared at the monitor in disbelief. Then he turned to Vogel. "Disable the portside auto-defenses, bring the Fortress about by 60 degrees and open the docking bay so they can see it clearly." He'd rather his unexpected but not unwelcome guests entered in a civilized manner this time, rather than being dragged in by cybots or burning a hole through the roof.

Fifteen minutes later, he and Vogel were down in the docking bay and waiting patiently while Janine--Fox Xanatos to the rest of the world, but she would always be his daughter despite how much she'd hurt him over the decades--shrugged herself free from her glider harness, and Goliath carefully removed Alexander from the backpack-sling that the smaller gargoyle, who resembled nothing so much as a giant green flying squirrel, had worn strapped to his back. Janine accepted Alexander from Goliath's hands with a smile, then approached her father and planted a kiss on his bald head. " 'Evening, Daddy. Thanks for opening the docking bay for us."

"What brings you all here, Janine?" Renard said bluntly, though he reached his wrinkled hands out to take Alexander from her and set him in his lap. Regardless of the reason why, he intended to enjoy whatever time he had with his grandson, whom he saw so rarely; he'd made it perfectly clear to all parties that the night Alexander had been born had been the first and only time he would ever set foot inside the Aerie Building.

"I just wanted to see you again," Janine said lightly, with a somewhat hurt look to her eyes that he would imagine anything otherwise, even after she'd tried more than once to wrest Cyberbiotics away from him by guile or force. "And since Goliath and Lexington wanted to come out here anyway, I thought we'd all visit together."

The web-winged gargoyle cleared his throat and stepped forward, holding out his hand. "Uh, Mr. Renard, we're never really been introduced; I'm Lexington. And I and my rookery brothers, and Hudson too, wanted to apologize for our actions against your company two years ago." He cast a glance at Fox as he said, "I think you know why we did what we did, but we're still responsible for our actions, and we're sorry about all the trouble we caused."

"Apology accepted," as Renard calmly took that four-fingered hand and shook it. "And I want to thank you, and the rest of your clan, for your actions in helping to save my grandson." Save his grandson from _his own ex-wife_, and that damnable Fey overlord she'd gone running back to… He firmly shoved such thoughts aside again, for the thousandth time, and turned to Goliath. "How is your clan faring these days?" He knew as well as the rest of the city did that they were living in that castle atop the Aerie Building again, though he'd scarcely believed it at first.

"The clan does quite well, actually," Goliath rumbled, with a raised eyebrow at Janine as if he couldn't quite believe it either, considering how much trouble she and David Xanatos had caused them in the past. Kneeling beside her father's powered wheelchair, Janine firmly ignored them both and concentrated on the finger that Alexander was holding in his tiny but firm grip.

"Good. But if ever you need shelter or my aid in any way, feel free to ask. And the young lady, Detective Maza?" as he remembered the darkly attractive young woman he'd met in Prague.

Now Goliath's face split in an ear-to-ear grin. "She is also quite well. And that is the main reason why we have come out here tonight," as he reached into a belt pouch, pulled out a white envelope and handed it to him. "To invite you to our wedding."

Renard almost dropped the envelope, as he stared at the gargoyle in utter shock. "Your…wedding?"

"You heard right, Daddy," Janine said now as she looked up from Alexander, shifting her head to stare him directly in the face. "They're not just having a mating ceremony; Goliath loves Elisa so much, he's agreed to a human-style wedding! And it's going to be next week's Saturday night, in the Labyrinth… Can you come?"

Renard looked at his daughter's face, and was astonished again. Astonished at the sheer naked pleading in her eyes, in the eyes of his daughter who had never truly asked for anything from him since she'd left home. (Stolen from him, yes, by trickery or electronic skullduggery or by outright physical theft, but never just _asked_.) But now, the pleading in her eyes… He could almost read her thoughts in her tense, worried and pleading expression, as she stared at him. _Please, Daddy, I know what you're thinking; that Goliath isn't human, and Elisa would be committing **bestiality** if she married him; not only illegal, but immoral. But they really love each other, and Goliath thinks of you as a friend, and he wants you to come, and please please **please** don't ruin this for him_…

Renard took a deep breath, then another. He had survived countless indignities at the hands of doctors, in trying to keep his failing body alive over the decades. He had survived the years of pain from watching Janine live her insane and immoral life. He had survived finding out he'd been unknowingly married to a Fey for over twenty years. He could survive watching a travesty of a marriage being performed, and keeping his opinions firmly to himself. For his daughter's sake… "Next Saturday, you said?"

Goliath nodded, still smiling. "Yes, at 9:00 p.m. in the Labyrinth. They've built a chapel there," and his smile twisted wryly, "and all parties seem to feel that it's neutral territory."

"The Labyrinth?" Renard echoed, as he forced his trembling fingers to open the envelope. "Surely you don't mean the maze in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens…"

"It's actually what used to be the old Cyberbiotics underground lab complex, Daddy," Janine put in again. "The people living there now have nicknamed it The Labyrinth. It's sort of a homeless shelter now, with a few mutates and gargoyle clones living there too…"

"Oh, really?" Renard arched an eyebrow at them all. "And do the current owners of those laboratories know about this? Because Cyberbiotics sold that property nearly two months ago, to Towleky Industries…" The property hadn't actually been on the market, but when Towleky's representative had come to him Renard hadn't hesitated for long. The sale had put the company ledgers more firmly in the black, after the large sums they'd paid the city to clean up the damage the Air Fortress II had done when crashing into Central park, the night of his grandson's birth.

"At really a much higher price than it was worth, considering all the renovating it would take to make it a research facility again. But we wanted to be sure we outbid anybody else who might be sniffing around it," Janine said with a wry smile. When everyone turned astonished eyes on her, she shrugged and said, "Well, David didn't want some stranger to come wandering in someday and kick out all the people who live there, so we created a few shell corporations and just bought it from you that way. And yes, Daddy, I know I could have just asked you for it, but David wanted to sort-of apologize for the mess he made too…"

"And he thought he could anonymously apologize with his checkbook, eh?" Renard said dryly, after ruefully absorbing the fact that he'd been tricked by Xanatos yet again. "Well, I suppose I could expect no better from him."

Janine frowned. "Daddy… He's trying. We're both trying…"

Renard sighed, and nodded. "Yes, daughter. And I'm proud of you for making the effort," as he reached his withered hand up to touch her cheek. And his heart hammered in his chest as, for the first time in far too many years, she held his hand to her cheek as a tear--a tear!--glistened in the corner of her eye. Times were changing, indeed! His hellion daughter was reforming; her ambitious husband was, at least, evidently developing a conscience…

And a human and a gargoyle were getting married. He turned back to Goliath. "Saturday, at 9:00 p.m. I'll be there. I assume the parking garage entrance is still working?" Then he smiled wryly. "And I don't suppose the bride has registered for china patterns anywhere…"

A short while later, Renard had Vogel give Goliath and Lexington a walking tour of Air Fortress II, so he and Janine could talk alone. Renard eyed the excited way Lexington scampered after Vogel and mused quietly to Janine, "That one seems to have an interest in modern technology."

"Lexington's a technophile to the core," Janine said with a smile. "Inviting him out here is like giving a typical human kid a day pass to a Hershey's chocolate factory. But he's great with kids, too; he'll happily baby-sit Alex nearly any time we ask. He was a real godsend during the worst of the teething last month."

"Hmph. I could've used a gargoyle babysitter when _you_ were that age…" Father and daughter shared a fond smile, before returning to the object of their mutual adoration. "Well, grandson, let's see these new teeth your mommy's so proud of… Well, now; six teeth already! Such a precocious boy you are…"

"Yes, he is!" Janine said proudly. Then her smile turned wry. "Even Puck says so."

Alex babbled gleefully into the tense silence that settled between the adults for a few moments. Then Renard said abruptly, "Have you heard from her lately?" He knew Janine wouldn't have to ask which 'her' he was referring to.

"Not since That Night," Janine said grimly, and he didn't have to ask which night she was referring to either. "Daddy… Looking back now, can you… Well… Did Mom ever do anything… _Fey-like_ that we just didn't pay attention to?"

Renard sighed. "Cold iron. I had always thought it was just a ladylike quality of hers, that she wore gloves with her dresses and always let me or someone else open the car doors for her. But looking back, I think she did it mainly to avoid accidental iron poisoning."

Janine smiled wryly. "Well, at least I didn't inherit _that_ from her." She gently stroked Alexander's downy-soft hair as she worried aloud, "Alex may have, though. Puck says that the stronger the magic-user, the more cold iron can affect them. Alex's human heritage should prevent him from being killed or seriously hurt by just touching iron or hearing an iron bell, but it'll make him incredibly uncomfortable, and possibly even painful, and definitely hamper any spell-casting he might need to do to protect himself. So we've had to be careful that all the cold iron we've put up around the castle isn't within his reach."

Renard nodded grimly. "Good thinking. Have you thought of planting…"

"Sage, rosemary, thyme, and St. John's wort, in the arboretum and in every other window box. Puck keeps going into sneezing fits if he gets too close." She sighed. "I… I just wish…"

Renard patted her hand. "I know. (sigh) I know. But…" He gestured at his own withered, decrepit frame, ensconced in the powered wheelchair. It had been nearly twenty years since he'd been able to stand on his own two feet… But he'd adapted, learned to make do. There were times when the pain, the frustration of dealing with his physical shortcomings and the near-palpable sensation of dying by inches had nearly driven him mad with despair, but… "We adapt, Janine, and we keep going. For as long as we can."

Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes again. "Thanks, Daddy," as she impulsively reached down to hug him. "You keep going as long as you can, and I'll do the same, okay?"

"Of course, sweetheart," he said with his own teary smile. It has been so long since she'd let him call her that… He settled back into the chair to balance Alexander in his lap again, letting the baby play with his fingers. Never mind what magical power the child might manifest someday; he'd already done the most miraculous thing possible, in bringing a stubborn old man and his even more stubborn daughter closer together, on friendly terms for the first time in far too many years. He smiled and turned Alexander around so the baby faced forward, and reached for the chair controls. "Let's go catch up to the others. Come on, grandson; let Grandpa give you a ride around his airship…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

While Lexington and Goliath were with Fox and her son out at the Cyberbiotics Air Fortress, the rest of the clan went on their patrols of the city, or visited the Labyrinth in the company of Father Sullivan. And, for two of the members, on another mission as well… "Time for an early break in our patrol," Brooklyn said to Broadway with a grin, as they soared over a section of the city well known to them.

"Yup," Broadway agreed with a return grin as he pointed at an apartment building below them, with windows lit up here and there. "And we're in luck; it looks like he's still at home." And without further ado, they landed on the fire escape outside the apartment belonging to Matt Bluestone.

Still cooking his dinner when he heard the now familiar knocking on his window, Matt smiled as he turned the burner down a few notches and went into his living room. He opened the window and nodded to Brooklyn and Broadway as he said, "Hi, guys! What brings you by tonight?"

"Goliath and Elisa told you about the wedding, right?" Brooklyn said eagerly. "And since you're a groomsman… Want to help us plan the bachelor party?"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

A few hours later the group of visitors left the Air Fortress, with Alexander sleeping soundly while nestled in the special 'kiddie-pack' Lexington had made for carrying him while gliding. Gliding alongside him in her hang glider, Fox smiled down at her son as she said fondly, "Sleeping like an angel…" Goliath quietly agreed, while Lexington craned his neck to smile fondly over his shoulder at the baby as well. No matter what conflicts the gargoyles might still have with the Xanatos family, the protection and adoration of their sweet little son was one subject they could all agree on.

When they were close to the shores of Manhattan, Goliath veered away from the group. "I'm off to see Jeffrey Robbins now. Lexington, be sure to call Angela and alert her as you approach the castle, so she can assist Fox's landing if need be."

Not liking the thought of needing assistance from anybody, even if the air wasn't her natural element, Fox glared at Goliath's retreating back and grumbled, "Big purple worrywart." Lexington snickered as he overheard that, but privately agreed.

A few minutes later, Goliath landed on the shore just outside Jeffrey Robbins' Long Island estate. Alerted by the sound of his opening the gate, Jeffrey's dog Gilly appeared at the sliding glass door and barked in both alert and welcome as he came up to the patio.

"Hello? Who's there?" Jeffrey asked as he appeared next to Gilly.

"It is I, Goliath," the gargoyle said genially as he approached the door. "Good evening, Jeffrey. I hope I'm not interrupting anything…"

"Not at all; I was stuck on a tricky passage anyway, and looking for an excuse to take a break. What brings you by here tonight? Is anything the matter?"

"No, nothing's the matter," Goliath replied with a smile as he pulled a slim tube out of his belt pouch, and pulled the cap off one end to let a rolled-up piece of paper slide out. "Hudson sends his regards; he's off visiting some other friends of the clan tonight." After shaking Jeffrey's outstretched hand, he carefully placed the roll of paper in it as he continued, "As you are also a valued friend to the clan, I came to give you an invitation… to my wedding."

Jeffrey automatically grasped the roll of paper placed in his hand, even as his jaw dropped wide open. "To your wedding! Now this is an honor! Who's the lucky girl-'goyle? The only one I've met so far is Angela, and I was under the impression that she's your daughter…"

Goliath coughed in embarrassment. "My apologies; I had thought Hudson had mentioned our unique relationship, during your visit the other night. No, the female I love is Elisa Maza, a human. Thus we are having a wedding, rather than the traditional gargoyle mating ceremony."

Jeffrey froze for a moment at Goliath's words, then said, "O-kayyy… Well, I hope you will both be happy together." He decided that after accepting that magic truly did exist, and after deducing that his friend Hudson was actually a gargoyle, the concept of a gargoyle and a human in love wasn't that much more of a stretch of the imagination. He unrolled the paper Goliath had given him, and ran his sensitive fingers across its surface. "Well, this is thoughtful; an invitation in Braille!"

"Yes, it was Hudson's idea," Goliath said proudly as he glimpsed the surface of the scroll, covered with carefully printed block letters, with rows of raised black dots in different configurations directly beneath each printed line. "He and Lexington spent a good deal of time last night researching the Braille letters, transcribing the invitation into Braille and carefully pressing each dot outwards with the tip of a pen from the other side."

"You are… cordially invited to the wedding of Elisa Maza to Goliath of Wyvern…" Jeffrey read aloud at first. He gave a brief, wry smile but didn't say aloud that for all their painstaking efforts on his behalf, somewhere along the way they had misspelled 'cordially'. He finished reading it silently, then said, "Next Saturday night, hm? I'd be honored to attend. This address at the bottom …"

"It's a church, yes, though the wedding will actually be held elsewhere. When you arrive there, someone will escort you to where the wedding is actually being held."

"I'd be honored to attend. And I must say, I'm most curious to meet the woman who's captured a gargoyle's heart…"

"Elisa is a very special person," Goliath said with a smile that even Gilly, if she could speak, would have described as lovestruck. "She would have accompanied me tonight as the invitations are delivered, but she's with her mother as they work on the wedding attire…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Elisa jerked and swore under her breath as she stuck herself with the sewing needle for the umpteenth time in the last three hours. Her mother heard her anyway, and gave her a raised eyebrow, but otherwise said nothing as she made chalk marks on the cloth she was using to make Goliath's tuxedo before reaching for the scissors.

Elisa absolutely _hated_ sewing; she'd been known to throw a blouse into the Goodwill bin for nothing more than a button that had come off, instead of taking the time to sew it back on. Their mother had drilled the basics of sewing and mending into all her three children, but only Beth had really taken to it, and she was still a few thousand miles away in Arizona. But since Elisa was the one getting married, her mother had decreed, in that tone that said she'd accept no arguments, that she would help out with making the attire for the wedding party.

When making the wedding attire for the Labyrinth's double wedding, sewing a specially-designed wedding dress and two tuxedos for the mutates from her own handmade sewing patterns, Diane Maza had done virtually all the work herself. Though all the sewing had been done in her apartment, Elisa had been drafted only as an errand runner; running to the store for more supplies when the sewing machine needle broke again or they ran low on cloth, thread and buttons or other notions. This time, Diane's work was much simpler, since Elisa was going to be wearing her mother's old wedding dress; Angela's bridesmaid dress, backless and full-skirted, had been bought off the rack at the same time as her sister Beth's dress; and Matt was renting his groomsman's tuxedo. (Elisa had stood in for her sister when she and Diane had gone dress shopping that afternoon, since she and Beth were very close to the same height and size. And her mother had given her a lavender leotard to wear, padded a borrowed bra with wads of Kleenex and made her stand on a short stack of catalogs when modeling for Angela's dress. The saleslady had given them some strange looks, but had mercifully refrained from asking questions; this was New York City, after all.)

This time, the only really difficult task Diane had set for herself was sewing a tuxedo to be worn by a creature over seven feet tall that walked on tip-toe, and with wings and a tail to boot. But last time, Diane had taken the entire week off from her work at the local grade schools, where she tutored children in reading and writing, in order to devote all her time to preparing for the wedding. This time, with the other tutors that worked alongside Diane either home sick or on vacation, Diane hadn't felt right in abandoning her post yet again, which meant she could only sew at night and on the weekends. Which meant that she expected Elisa to help out and make the work go faster on at least one of her nights off, and when she'd made her expectations clear Elisa hadn't dared to say no. Even if she still _hated_ sewing…

Elisa stuck herself yet _again_, this time with a pin, then tossed aside her work in a sudden fit of temper. "Just shoot me and get it over with! I swear to God, I'd rather be in the middle of a crossfire with Tony Dracon's men than see another sewing needle, ever again!"

Her mother shook her head and _tsk_'ed at her. "Elisa, all you have left to do is baste that seam together for fitting. It's not all that difficult…"

"Well then, why don't we get Angela out here to help? She does embroidery, even!"

"Elisa Maria Maza…"

Even though she was nearly twenty-seven years old now and had been living on her own for years, That Look, the patented Mommy Glare, still had power over her. Elisa sulked as she picked up her work again, "Okay, okay…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Down in the Labyrinth, Hudson looked on as another female struggled through a hard task that many would have found easy, though not involving sewing needles. Delilah frowned and nearly crossed her eyes as she stared hard at the pages of a book and slowly read, "…'I will look for her until I find her,' said Mr. Bird. He looked high. He looked low. He looked… ev… evereww…"

"Everywhere," Hudson helpfully supplied. He privately admitted to himself that it felt good to be able to help someone else with their reading skills, after his own struggle to master the skill over the last two years. He still had trouble with a few words, but his skills far surpassed those of the clones, most of whom had just finished mastering the alphabet in the three months since they had come down here, and had just barely started on stringing the letters together to make words. Delilah, though, had far outstripped her brothers and was beginning to truly read on her own; Thailog and that nasty Dr. Sevarius had indeed given her more brains than her brothers, though how great the difference between them was had yet to be seen.

A short while later, Delilah finished reading the well-worn copy of "The Best Nest", and Hudson praised her for her efforts. Hollywood and Malibu, who had been sitting quietly while petting Bronx between them and listening in, agreed that she'd done really well, and they were glad Mr. and Mrs. Bird were happy with their nest and their new chick.

Delilah grinned wide at their praise, then frowned a little as she reopened the book and flipped to a page near the middle. She asked Hudson, "Do we need all this stuff for a nest for my egg?" She absently rubbed her belly, which was now much more noticeably swelling with the egg forming inside her, as she read from the book, "Hay, and straw, and string, and stuffing, and horse hair, and man hair…"

Hudson chuckled. "Nay, lass, ye don't need all those things. Back in Scotland, we used just plain dry straw for cradling our eggs in the rookery."

Maggie, who'd come in while Delilah was flipping through the book, gave a wry smile as she heard that. "Now _that's_ going to be a challenge to find, here in Manhattan. Back in Ohio, I could have gotten a bale of hay or straw just for the asking from one of the local farmers outside of town, but in this city…"

"Aye, I see yer meaning," Hudson agreed wryly. "With no peasants or farmers raising crops hereabouts, fresh hay is likely as hard to find as fresh honey."

"What about just piling up some old blankets to make a nest? I mean, if that's good enough for puppies and kittens all over the country, it should be okay for an egg."

Hudson nodded slowly. "All that's needed is to keep the egg warm and dry; any blankets ye can spare should do well enough, mayhap even better than straw would." His eyes had flickered to Maggie's own swelling belly as she spoke, and he wondered fleetingly if he'd misread that book on how human babes were made, the one he'd found in the castle library after the clan had learned Maggie was expecting. From what he'd read and the pictures he'd seen, a human mother who was only three months long shouldn't be swelling quite so quickly. But with her waistline a little larger for virtually every one of his weekly visits, Maggie seemed to be developing almost as quickly as a gargoyle female making an egg…

"That's good," Maggie said amiably, unaware of Hudson's thoughts. "Anyway, kids, it's time for dinner! Brentwood and Burbank are setting the table for you; don't forget to wash your hands!" Maggie called after the three clones, because they had already leaped to their feet and stampeded out the door, heading for the communal kitchen and dining hall with Bronx barking at their heels as he galloped after them.

Hudson chuckled as he picked up the book Delilah had tossed aside at first mention of supper. "Full-grown they may be on the outside, but they're still hatchlings at heart."

"That they are," Maggie agreed as she accepted the book from Hudson, and _tsk_ed over the fresh ding on a corner. "And just as hard on their books and toys as regular kids, too. And we don't have that many intact books down here, either; a lot of the ones we find on our scrounging expeditions have pages missing, or they've been soaked through by the rain and the ink has run. It's at times like this when I really miss my library card."

Hudson paused at her words, just as they were about to head out the door after the clones. "Ye're looking for more books, then?"

Maggie nodded, a little embarrassed. "The kids could use some good reading material… and really, so could I, and a lot of other adults down here. But we don't want to ask Mr. Xanatos for such a luxury, not after he's already providing us with food and clothing, and jobs for those people who can handle them."

"Aye, I can understand. But the books I'm thinking of," as Hudson stroked his beard in thought, "dinna belong to Xanatos…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Sunday mornings were relaxing times in the Xanatos household. The gargoyles were all asleep on their perches, and the Aerie building down below them was nearly empty, with the few personnel who were working fully aware that they were not to disturb the castle residents for anything short of imminent nationwide disaster. David and Fox Xanatos were taking full advantage of the opportunity to sleep in, secure in the knowledge that Anne Marsden, their new nanny, was on hand to take care of their son Alex when their little emperor deigned to wake up. And when Fox woke up first, and whimsically decided that this time Beauty would awaken her slumbering Prince Charming with a kiss, well… they found a good reason to stay in bed a great deal longer. When they finally got out of bed, they argued amiably over who got to use the shower first, and finally settled the matter by showering together. Which led to getting back into bed for a while…

Finally, a little after noon, they wandered into the kitchen to find something for their mutually rumbling stomachs. Bless Broadway's big heart, he had left some homemade waffles and sausages on a platter for them to reheat, and a pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice. "Y'know, David, maybe we should just hire Broadway to be our personal chef," Fox said thoughtfully as she watched the sausages reheating in the microwave, seemingly mesmerized by the carousel's turning and the rotating victuals. "I bet the IRS would be happy to give him a TIN (_Taxpayer Identification Number, number given to resident aliens working in the US—ye author_), so long as they get their percentage of his paycheck, and then we'd be able to present the gargoyles to the public as ordinary working stiffs and taxpayers, if not actually citizens."

"That's not a bad idea, actually," David mused as he stroked his beard, while waiting for their special Colombian blend of coffee to percolate. "And we could hire Lexington as a computer specialist, and the rest as, say, security consultants… I'll bounce it off the legal department on Monday, and if they think we can get away with it I'll present the idea to Goliath and company Monday night. Bless you, my dear, for having brains as well as beauty," as he gave her a quick smooch.

They ate their breakfast in the breakfast nook with companionable banter that threatened to send them back to the bedroom, but never quite got there for the third time. They were just putting the dishes in the sink to soak when the intercom mounted on the wall beeped for their attention. David frowned at it as he saw the light indicating they were being called from the Aerie Building's front desk. "For Pete's sake, don't people realize this is supposed to be a day of rest?"

But Fox looked suddenly hopeful. "Maybe it's Daddy? When we left him last night, he did say he might possibly drop by the castle again someday…"

Personally, David didn't really feel up to a visit from his father-in-law just then, but he knew better than to say so, considering how Fox was trying to mend fences with him. "But if it isn't him, it had better be a national emergency," he grumbled as he went over to the intercom and thumbed the switch to turn it on. "Xanatos here."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Xanatos," a male voice came smoothly over the intercom. "I trust this isn't too much of an inconvenience for you?"

David and Fox traded sharp glances; the voice on the other end of the line did **_not_** belong to anyone on their weekend security team. "Who is this?" David barked into the microphone.

"Oh, how rude of me not to introduce myself right away," the voice said smoothly--far too smoothly, in Fox's opinion. The tones of a man who was in complete control of a situation, though in a place not his own…. "And I suppose it really can't be expected of you to remember me solely by voice… Norman Duval, at your humble service."

Who? Fox didn't know the name. She looked at David, to ask him if he knew this man… and gasped, as her heart skipped a beat.

All the blood had drained out of David's face, leaving him so pale beneath his perpetual tan that he looked a sickly shade of yellow. And his eyes were wide with… fear.

Fear, from David Xanatos, the man who had faced down kings and presidents and even Fey demigods!

But even as she stared, David licked his lips, swallowed and spoke, his tone as light as if he were greeting a fellow corporate executive. "To what do I owe the pleasure, Mr. Duval? And by the way, may I ask as to the whereabouts of my employee at the front desk? Have you seen him, perchance?"

"Ah, yes, I have, as well as your doorman. A Mr. James Hathaway, and a Mr. Frederick Niles," Mr. Duval said, sounding as if he was reading the names off of something… such as their employee badges. "Neither are the most agreeable of fellows, I'm afraid. But I do believe their last meals had some disagreement with them, as well… Perhaps they'll feel better after a few days."

The mercenary in Fox translated that to read: Niles and Hathaway were out of the picture, probably unconscious and possibly rendered comatose by means unknown, but still alive. And since both were loyal employees of Xanatos Enterprises and well versed in security measures, and the castle hadn't been alerted of a security breach before he called, Mr. Duval was no doubt very good at whatever it was he did. And dammit, now the name "Duval" sounded familiar to her, but she couldn't remember from where or when.

Duval continued, "As to why I've come here, Mr. Xanatos, I'm afraid that after you failed to return my last few calls in a timely fashion, I rather thought a face-to-face meeting was in order."

"I quite understand. And while I have left messages with your secretary while you were out, I do apologize for not making more of an effort to speak with you directly before this," David said soothingly.

"Oh, it's quite all right. I should like to come up now, if you and your family are quite decent…"

"Ah, I'm afraid my family isn't here at the moment; they're spending the weekend with my father-in-law, so he can spend more time spoiling his grandson rotten," David lied smoothly. "But I'll gladly meet you in my office, in… ten minutes?"

"That will do," and there was no doubt about the trace of amusement in Duval's voice. Fox knew, as surely as she knew of the turquoise tattoo over her own eye, that the man was perfectly aware that she was listening right beside David, and her husband was lying out of sheer desperation and desire to protect his family. Which meant, as if she hadn't already figured it out, that this man was a _threat_ to her and their son.

"Then I'll see you there." And David reached out and shut off the intercom, then drew a deep, shuddering breath. "Oh, God."

"David, who is this man? And what can he do to us?" Fox realized her voice was shrill with tension, and hated herself for sounding so 1950's-housewifey.

Instead of answering, David abruptly pulled her into a hard embrace and a deep, passionate kiss. After resisting for a microsecond, Fox hugged him back and kissed him hungrily, understanding that David thought it just might possibly be their last kiss ever. After a few seconds, David broke off the kiss to tell Fox with his eyes darkly serious, "Fox, darling, go to the nursery; I need you to protect Alex, keep him safe from whatever may happen. And if we come out of this in one piece, _please_ kick me in the head if I ever even think of sending Owen away on a made-up business trip again."

"But David, _who is this man_?"

David's face was as grim as a death mask, as he ran for the bedroom to throw on some decent clothes before his unexpected meeting. "Mr. Duval is the Grandmaster of the Illuminati."

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Down in the nursery, Anne Marsden was playing with her charge Alexander and her daughter Bethany together. At first Anne had found it slightly disconcerting at first to realize that, though Alex wasn't quite six months old and had yet to say any coherent words out loud, he had the capacity for _understanding_ language that rivaled a three-year-old's. That was apparently a result of the telepathic link that Puck had forged between himself and Alex, in order to facilitate the young quarter-Fey's lessons in magic. (Anne had the private opinion that when Alex did start talking, he'd skip right past 'mama' and 'ball' and the standard one-word beginnings, and go right into full sentences like "Well, why can't I play on the ceiling?") For right now, it was very convenient in that Anne could read a book to them both at the same time, and have nearly the same level of interest from both. And right now she had both children giggling until they were practically in stitches, while she provided all the sound effects for the Dr. Seuss classic, _Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You_?

After Anne had finished the book and changed Alex's stinky diapers, Bethany asked, "Can we play Magic-Catch now, Mommy?"

"Yes, you may, Bethany, and thank you for asking so nicely!" Anne said approvingly as she picked up a rubber ball from one of the many shelves of toys in the nursery. Anne was a firm believer in promoting good manners by thanking and rewarding children for polite behavior. "And since you asked so nicely, you can go first this time. Catch, Bethany!" as she tossed the ball high into the air.

Since Bethany had already been using True Sight, though uncontrolled, even before coming to live at the castle, she had picked up basic levitation with relative ease; within five days of arriving, she had been able to lift that ball into the air, just by watching and listening when 'Uncle Puck' reviewed Alex's levitation lessons with him. (As Puck had explained regretfully, the geas binding him let him use his powers only to teach or protect Alex. But there was nothing to prevent Bethany from attending the lessons as well, and learning alongside him…) After grasping the basics, she moved swiftly into the finer points of levitation, and practiced with simple games. The ball arced high into the air well away from where Bethany was sitting, but as she stared at it the ball abruptly curved in midflight, better than Gaylord Perry's best spitball, and zoomed right into her waiting hands.

"Very good, Bethany!" Anne praised her, and held her own hands out. "Now send it back here…" Bethany did so, the ball arcing out of her hands and straight into her mother's. "Well done! Your turn, Alex; catch!" As she tossed the ball into the air again. This time, it performed another apparently impossible curve in midair and fell right into Alex's waiting hands. "Very good, Alex! Now send it back…" and the ball went back and forth, with Anne frequently varying the angle and speed of her toss but the children almost always intercepting it in midair, catching it and sending it back for another toss. When they'd first begun playing this game, the children had thought it was great fun to send the ball wildly all over the room and watch her chase after it, since she didn't have magic for catching. But she had eventually persuaded them that it was more fun to send it straight to her hands every time, by holding her hands at different heights and angles and challenging them to put the ball right where her hands were, and applauding when they got it right. "Very good! Let's see you send it to my hands when they're way down here, Alex!" as she bent nearly double to hold her hands bare inches off the floor. The ball snapped straight into her grip in a grounder that Casey Stengel would have been proud of. "Ooh, nice one!"

Playtime ended abruptly when Fox came running into the nursery with a grim expression and a pair of loaded Glock 9mm's. "Anne, we've got a situation going on," she said without preamble as she slapped the ball away and thrust one of the guns into Anne's stunned grip. "When I leave the nursery, it's going to go into lockdown mode; you'll be sealed inside with the kids. With any luck, either my husband or I will be reversing the lockdown and opening the door in an hour or so. But if anybody else comes through that door first, _shoot to kill_." And with that, she turned and ran out the door, slapping a recessed button next to the door.

"B-but I can't handle a gun!" Anne tried to protest, even as a solid steel panel came down from the ceiling and slammed into place in the doorway. With ominous sounds like rolling thunder, previously hidden steel panels slid down over the nursery windows, cutting off the afternoon sunlight even as the overhead lights came on, illuminating the room in a suddenly harsh yellow glare. "I've never even fired one before," she whispered in dismay. "Oh, Lord… No, Bethany, oh, honeys, please don't cry," as Alex and Bethany both began wailing, frightened by the change and by the tension in the air. Anne gingerly put the gun down on a high shelf, well out of the normal reach of both Alex and Bethany, and hoped that the steel in it would prevent the children from trying to levitate it. Then she got down on the floor with her charges and tried to comfort them with hugs and whispers of reassurance. "It'll be okay, I'm sure everything will be okay soon…. Sshhh, sshhhh…" But she bit her lip as she calculated the distance between herself and the gun, and wondered if, when the time came, she'd have warning enough to get to the gun before the seal lifted completely. And skill and courage enough to aim and fire it…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

After sealing the nursery, Fox ducked into a shallow alcove, and disappeared. At least, it might have looked that way to anybody who didn't know about the secret passages that enabled those who knew about them to move about the castle undetected. After the 'Lost Nights', when they'd determined that Demona had been hiding in the castle the entire time Xanatos had been formulating a plan to counteract the 'stone-sleep-at-night' spell she had cast on the city, she, David and Owen had gone through the castle with a fine-toothed comb. They'd found, to their surprise, four different secret passages threading through the castle that hadn't been recorded in the basic castle floor map that had been drawn up back in Scotland, before the castle had been transplanted stone by stone to Manhattan.

It just boggled the mind that, during all the work that had been done in labeling and diagramming each stone of the castle, taking everything down, transporting it all across the Atlantic and setting everything back up again on top of the Aerie Building, and installing modern amenities such as electricity and plumbing, no one had ever once said within the project manager's hearing, "Hey, look at this, a secret passage!" Or at least so he had claimed, when David and Owen had questioned him about it. (But David had fired him anyway, figuring that if he hadn't deliberately been withholding information from them, then he'd been neglecting to supervise the work site properly.)

They didn't use the passages often, not wanting to alert the unknowing to their existence; David was a firm believer in the concept of knowledge as power and not giving away any advantage he didn't have to. But Fox deemed that today was a day to use every advantage she could get her hands on, against the man that had her husband running scared. David had wanted her to stay in the nursery with Alexander, as the last measure of defense for their son. But as far as Fox was concerned, the best defense was a strong offense…

Using the secret passage, she sprinted to the monitoring room that was the 'nerve center' of the castle's security and defenses. From this room, they could use the security cameras to see not only the entire exterior of the castle and the interior of nearly every room and hallway in it, but the interiors of the elevator that connected the castle with the Aerie Building below it. As Fox dropped into the monitoring room's center seat, she activated the monitor screen for the elevator's camera, while flipping open one of the many panels covered in bright red plastic and warning signs for better access to the bright red button below it. David had actually balked a bit when she'd told him she'd wanted that button installed, but she'd explained that she hadn't survived years as a mercenary without learning to make all entries into the command base secure in case of emergencies. Pressing that button would detonate the explosive charges she'd attached to the roof of the elevator cab, severing the cables and sending the cab and whoever was in it screaming down to the bottom of the shaft. And head of the Illuminati or not, if this Mr. Duval was carrying a weapon or bringing along henchmen she didn't like the looks of, he was going to go bye-bye…

The remote indicator for the elevator indicated that it had risen past the forty-seventh floor already, and was still rising. The monitor for the interior flickered to life… and showed nothing. Nothing except the lush, red-and-gold motif carpeting and wallpapering of the elevator. It was empty? Mr. Duval must have been anticipating this move, and sent the elevator up as a distraction while he and his lackeys approached by some other means. Fox used some words she didn't normally use around her son's tender ears while she activated every exterior monitor and the ones for the emergency fire stairs, scanning for the intruders' approach. Nothing on the east or north sides… Ditto on the west and south sides… The fire stairs were clear…

While she was still scanning, the elevator arrived at the level of the castle and the doors opened. Fox's attention was momentarily caught by the doors' movement, shown on the security monitor for the hallway directly in front of the elevator, which came on automatically whenever the elevator was in use. She flicked her eyes to that monitor, then flicked them away and continued scanning, then turned back and stared when that same camera showed a …_shimmer_ in the middle of the hall. No foreign objects were visible, let alone a full-grown man, but the view seemed to subtly ripple… It was as if a miniature heat wave was moving through that hall, and the heat-ripples in the air were distorting the view as it moved along.

_A cloaking device_. _Shades of **Star Trek**_, Fox thought to herself as she stared at the monitor. Either that, or they were being visited by Casper the Not-So-Friendly Ghost… She swore again, as she scanned the control panel for the infrared camera setup. It was supposed to have been put in for the last interior upgrade, but she'd been in Australia with Mother while that had been going on and had missed the briefing…

She finally got the infrared cameras and their special monitors activated, just in time for the ripple effect to stop in front of David's office door, open it and proceed in; the monitor clearly showed a man-sized warm body going through the door, so it wasn't a ghost they were dealing with. Then she caught a glimpse of her husband's hand outstretched for a handshake, and heard his voice, picked up faintly by the hallway's audio pickups: "Mr. Duval; a pleasure to see you again…" So David could see him, but the cameras could not? What the Hell was going on?

Fox switched to the monitors for David's office, and the infrared camera clearly showed the man-sized warm body that was Mr. Duval sitting down in one of the seat in the office, as the warm body--a much warmer body, too--that was her husband resumed his seat behind his desk. She activated the audio pickup for David's office, figuring that she could at least listen in on the conversation, even if she couldn't see the mysterious Mr. Duval for herself. And she heard… nothing but static. Just white noise… Dammit, did their visitor come with his own personal bug-scrambler? …Or was _David_ doing this, because he didn't want this conversation to be taped?

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Inside his office, David silently cursed himself in salty language he hadn't used since he'd stopped working on his father's fishing boat, for not responding to the Illuminati's 'requests' concerning the gargoyles before it came to this. Then he looked across his desk at the man sitting at ease in his chair, and wondered just how a man who looked so utterly nondescript could get his palms to sweating. Norman Duval appeared to be in his late thirties, at most; thinning hair, mild eyes, slender build, the sort of man that most people would utterly forget within ten seconds of passing him on the street. Utterly forget, if they did not know that they were in the presence of the most powerful man in the Western Hemisphere… David firmly told himself that to show fear so early on would definitely be a weakness, and schooled his features back to a calm smile as they exchanged the usual pleasantries over the weather and Duval's trip. Then he asked, still smiling, "So, what brings you to my humble abode?"

Mr. Duval's equally pleasant smile faded, as he remarked, "To business, then. Mr. Xanatos, I'm afraid you have a bit of a problem…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

An hour later, Mr. Duval arose from his chair as he said pleasantly, "Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Xanatos. I'm so glad we had this little chat…"

David Xanatos arose from his chair as well, looking as haggard as if he'd run down the fire stairs all the way to the lobby, and possibly even back up again. He groaned, "So am I, sir."

"Oh, there's no need to put yourself to any trouble, I can find my own way out," Mr. Duval politely protested as David came around his desk, to show him to the door.

"Oh, but I insist; it's only proper for fulfilling my duties as a host," Xanatos said firmly, as he showed his guest to the door, and then to the elevator. Only once the elevator doors had closed and the floor indicator mounted over them showed the cab moving back down again did he slump against the nearest wall, then slide down it to end up sitting back against the cool stones, sighing with mingled exhaustion and relief.

Fox appeared next to him in less than a minute, looking half-wild with suspense, frustration and concern. "David, _what happened_!"

David sighed again, as he tugged on her hand to pull her down to where he was sitting. Once she was curled up next to him, looking anxiously into his eyes, he said, "I just negotiated the hardest deal of the decade. And I came out on top, more or less… Well, not on the bottom, anyway."

Fox looked at him gravely. "What are the terms of this deal, exactly?"

"Which do you want first, the good news or the bad news?"

"The bad news."

"The bad news is, I can't support the gargoyles in their quest for acceptance any more. I can't support the P.I.T., I can't do a damn thing about the Quarrymen **_or_** about anybody else who has an unhealthy interest in them, and I most especially can't lay a single finger on the Q-men's main bankroller, Oliver Grimm, or any of his corporate holdings."

"And the good news…?"

"The good news is, my head is _not_ going to end up on a pike any time soon, Xanatos Enterprises is probably _not_ going to be rendered bankrupt overnight, and I can keep you, Alex and the rest of my family safe. And so long as the gargoyles are within the castle walls or perched on the battlements, I can keep them safe too. But any time they leave the castle, to go on patrol or see the detectives or anything else, they're on their own."

Fox stared at him. Her David, meekly accepting limits like that? This was not the same risk-taking man she had married; not the same man who had told her to send Hyena and Jackal on a mission that had nearly cost him his own life—twice!—just as a ploy to get Elisa's brother Derek firmly entrenched in his camp as his personal bodyguard. Not the same daredevil who had taken on Demona as a temporary business partner to further his own ends, knowing of her pathological hatred of humanity and the likelihood of her killing him with her bare talons when she was through with him. How had he changed so much…?

Not how: _who_. Who had changed him so much… and the answer was in the nursery. Alexander. For the first time in his life, David Xanatos had somebody small and helpless depending on him to keep him safe. Somebody he loved as fiercely as any father could love his son… And that meant that, for the first time in his life, David had something he couldn't afford to lose, couldn't even afford to risk. It was unfortunate that the gargoyles would have to be risked instead.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

When Elisa came up to the castle shortly before sunset, Xanatos let her know that, due to 'circumstances beyond his control', his potential aid to the gargoyles was now restricted solely to providing them a safe roosting spot for the day. Elisa eyed him with a strong element of disbelief… mixed with sympathy. "Y'know, before tonight, I'd have figured that there was nothing that fazed you, not Demona, not Coyote, not even six months behind bars. Your ego was too big to even comprehend that someone could seriously threaten you. But my years as a cop have taught me how to tell when a man is scared, or has been recently… And Xanatos, you've been scared _bad_."

"Thank you _so_ much for your assessment, detective," Xanatos said with heavy sarcasm. Then he sighed again, resuming the same depressed look he'd been sporting before she'd come in. "I hate being hobbled like this… but I've no choice. I can't even begin to tell you what sort of damage could be done, to my family and my business, if I stepped outside the bounds set for me by…"

"By the Illuminati," Elisa finished for him, looking annoyed. "What the hell is it with you secret society types, that you're afraid to even say the word out loud to anyone who isn't a member?"

"Not afraid, just hesitant," Xanatos said defensively. Then he tried to joke, "After all, what good is it to have a secret organization if nobody keeps it a secret?"

The joke fell flat. "Maybe a lot of good, if it was a little less secret and a little more honest in its dealings," Elisa retorted. "No matter how much you say the world sometimes needs an unseen hand pulling strings, you can't tell me that the Illuminati doesn't have a dark underbelly, doings that would be flat-out criminal--or out-and-out _evil_--when exposed to the light of day. Back when he was still openly investigating them, Matt told me about their probable links to organized crime, and he'd probably barely scratched the surface…" When Xanatos said nothing in reply, she sighed irritably and turned her back on him. "Don't worry too much about the guys when they're on patrol, Xanatos; that's _my_ job. And we'll find a way to deal with the Quarrymen without your help. As for the P.I.T…"

Now Xanatos was able to muster a fainthearted smile. "Actually, we have an idea about that already. Fox is on the phone to her father right now, and…" The sound of stone crackling was heard as he spoke, and Elisa waved off the rest of his words as she ran out to the battlements to greet her fiancé and his family.

When the gargoyles finished their nightly shedding of stone, roaring and yawning, Elisa briefed them on what Xanatos had just told her, and the gargoyles looked disappointed, but not particularly worried or afraid. As Goliath explained to Xanatos when he tried to apologize for having 'let them down', "All we have ever asked of you is what this castle had always been to us before; a safe haven for roosting during the day. Patrols have always had an element of danger, even before the Quarrymen came to exist; acknowledging that danger and accepting risks are part of being a warrior. Though the danger has increased considerably from when we first awakened in this time, and far more from when we were threatened by Vikings and marauding bands attacking the castle, we will adapt and survive as best we can." Then he turned to the others and began assigning patrols for the night. Once that was done and he had arranged for himself and Hudson to take the last patrol of the night, he turned to Elisa with a smile. "Are you ready to travel, my love?"

Elisa finished pulling her gloves on and brandished the white envelope she'd had put in her jacket pocket. "Got the last invitation right here. And I already called ahead to make sure he's home tonight, so he's waiting for us," she added as Goliath swept her off her feet and sprang off the battlements with her in his arms.

Xanatos watched them go, then went into the nursery, picked up his son and just held him close, breathing in his innocent baby scent, as he'd been doing off and on ever since Duval had left, and as he'd probably be doing even after Owen returned, due back just after midnight. He hadn't told anyone that there had been an additional price tag on his family's safety, and on keeping a safe haven for the gargoyles: a favor. A debt that his son was expected to pay… One day years in the future, when Alexander was far more trained in the use of his magic, the Illuminati would require him to cast a spell. Just one spell, and Duval had assured him that it would not directly result in anyone's death. But beyond that, he had no assurances, and he hoped to God that he hadn't just sold his or his son's soul to the Devil in return for his family's safety…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Jon Castaway smiled in satisfaction, as he leaned back in his chair and twiddled the pen he'd just used in checking his Quarryman roster. By contrast, Oliver Grimm came into the office looking as though he'd been sucking on sour lemons all day. Castaway asked him, "Why the dour look? We now have four working hovercycles and eight men fully qualified for handling them; though they haven't the range or speed of the helicopters, they're even more maneuverable when dealing with the New York skyscrapers, and now we can take our battles to the skies again. And once we've destabilized their safe haven…"

"That's not going to happen," Grimm told him abruptly. "For the moment, David Xanatos and his corporation can not be touched, at least not by direct means."

Castaway swung his feet back down to the floor and stared at him. "What? But the other day you said…"

Oliver Grimm gritted his teeth, looking as though he would like very much to take a bite out of somebody. "Without going into details, and you would be advised _not_ to ask, I have learned that if I used my business and financial resources to shake up Xanatos Enterprises or hire an assassin to take out the man himself, there would be _dire_ repercussions. And at the moment, I am not yet braced to handle those repercussions." He added, half to himself, "Though one day, I will be, and when that day comes…"

"Repercussions from whom?" Castaway asked bluntly. "Who would be twisted enough to give protection to such an traitor to humanity as David Xanatos?"

Oliver Grimm stared at him hard. "I'll say this only one more time: _Do not ask_."

Castaway was the first to drop his eyes from that stare, but covered his apparent moment of weakness by picking up the papers on his desk. "Even so, we have the hovercycles, we're replaced the lieutenants and fighters that were lost in that initial raid on the castle, and the squads now all know better than to engage any traitorous civilians directly and tarnish our good name. All we need now is--"

"A sighting!" a Quarryman lieutenant said as he excitedly burst into the room without knocking. "Sirs, we have a confirmed sighting, of your biggest quarry!"

"Where?" Castaway barked as he jumped to his feet. "And is anyone tracking?"

"Walters and his team are shadowing, sir, as per your standing orders; target is moving south on Broadway!"

"Excellent!" as Castaway grabbed his Quarryman hood out of a drawer and donned it while ordering, "Assemble the first hovercycle team!"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Goliath and Elisa enjoyed their glide across the evening sky despite the chilly temperatures that had engulfed the city lately. Goliath told her how his visits with Halcyon Renard and Jeffrey Robbins had gone and passed on their regards and best wishes, and listened (trying hard to keep a look of sympathy on his face, instead of an amused smile) as Elisa bitched about helping her mother sew the wedding attire. Finally, he said amusedly, "If all these wedding preparations are truly upsetting you, it's not too late to go back to the castle and simply have the traditional mating ceremony instead…"

"Are you kidding! If we eloped now, my mother would kill us both! …Besides," Elisa told him with an evil grin, "if I had to suffer through sticking myself with all those pins and needles, I want you to suffer through wearing the finished product."

Now he gave her a concerned look. "My Elisa, I had no idea you could be so vengeful…"

Eventually, they reached their destination: the stately mansion that, according to the city, belonged to a man named Lennox MacDuff. Though Goliath had been out here before more than once, it was the first time Elisa had actually been out to the mansion, and she eyed it appreciatively. "Looks pretty fancy… and in remarkably good condition, considering how you told me it had been trashed _twice_ in battle, before we went on our World Tour. MacBeth must have socked away a lot of money over the centuries."

A light shined in a room with French doors leading out to a balcony, as MacBeth had arranged with Elisa when she had called earlier; it was his upstairs study, just off the upper level of his magnificent library. They alit on the balcony and knocked on the French doors, and an easy chair facing a fireplace swiveled around to show them MacBeth, smiling as he got to his feet and ushered them inside. "Come in, come in! I must say, it's a pleasure to see you both for a purely social occasion for once."

"That it is," Goliath said as he proffered his hand with a smile. The smile grew wider when MacBeth instead grasped his forearm in the traditional warrior's handshake preferred by gargoyles. Elisa offered her hand as well, and found herself blushing when MacBeth bowed and courteously kissed the back of it, as he would for a noble lady from a medieval court. (Goliath's gaze sharpened for a moment, but he quickly relaxed.)

MacBeth urged Elisa to take off her jacket and gloves and be comfortable, since the roaring fire in the fireplace kept the room toasty-warm, and urged them both to sit down, Elisa in another chair and Goliath on a sturdy bench that MacBeth had brought in for the occasion. Once they had seated themselves, he passed around a platter of sliced cheeses and crackers that he had prepared for their visit, and offered to pour for them from a bottle of wine that was nearly a hundred years old.

"You'd be wasting it on this mundane palate," Elisa said ruefully. "The few times I do drink wine, it's more apt to come out of a box than a bottle." To be honest, most of her drinking experiences had been drinking beer and margaritas with her buddies on the force, on the rare occasions that they would get together for a barbecue or a promotion party. But she still accepted a goblet containing a few sips' worth of the fine wine, while Goliath accepted a goblet containing a more generous portion.

MacBeth looked relaxed and happy as he sat back down in his chair with his own glass, and expressed again how pleasurable it was for them to come see him on a purely social occasion; it was a rare experience to have friendly acquaintances who knew him for who and what he truly was, and accepted him without a qualm. "To be painfully honest, I haven't let down my guard to speak freely with anyone since before the American Revolution. I try not to add to the regrets in my long life, as I've accumulated so many, but I do regret that my first encounter with your clan was for the purpose of an assault and kidnapping."

"At the time, you had good reasons to suspect we were involved with Demona," Goliath said with a hand raised to forestall further apology. "Once the clan understood that you were actually seeking our mutual enemy, we bore you no real grudge for it." Then he frowned. "Although our second encounter, over the Scrolls of Merlin…"

MacBeth frowned as well. "If I'd known the bloody things were merely diaries, I'd have left them alone, I assure you. But after hunting Demona for over fifty years without success, I was quite hoping the scrolls would give me a means of magically ending my immortality. Or, failing that, provide a spell that would either bring her to me directly, or track her down beyond any hope of evading or escaping."

"Wait a second… did you say you'd been hunting Demona for just fifty years?" Elisa asked confusedly. "Then…"

"Oh, she and I had encountered each other twice before that," MacBeth said, understanding her confusion. "Once back in medieval Prussia, in the mid-fourteenth century as I recall, and again in Paris during the Terror, their Revolution." He sighed. "The first time, I tried to kill her to end our lives, for the Plague that was sweeping through Europe at the time and slaughtered entire villages had destroyed all those I'd come to care for in that era, and I was sick of seeing death on everyone's face but my own. And the second time, she tried to kill _me_, though at the time I could not allow it; I was with a family of minor nobles, good people, and doing my best to smuggle them safely out of the slaughterhouse their country had become." He shook his head. "There were times in the last fifty years when I cursed myself long and hard for not just letting her rip my throat out in that Parisian alley."

"Demona actually sought to kill you, and end her own life?" Goliath said with a skeptically raised brow ridge.

"Aye, I could hardly believe it myself," MacBeth said with a nod, his eyes unfocused as he looked back into his memories. "I remember thinking at the time, that her shrieks had as much grief and despair as rage and hatred in them… Mayhap the Terror killed someone she'd been close to. The maddened peasants laid waste to most of Paris and the surrounding countryside, even attacking the cathedrals, and I had heard rumors that a clan of gargoyles once made their home in the spires of Notre Dame…"

Goliath lowered his head and closed his eyes in pain, at the thought of yet another clan being wiped out by a mob. Elisa cast a glance at him, then decided to move the subject along a little. "So you're saying that, for most of the past centuries, you were both willing to, um, just live and let live?"

MacBeth nodded. "Yes, though you may find that hard to believe, considering our enmity. And it's true that, considering what she's done to me, and what she _thinks_ I'd done to her, there will always be hatred between us. But no, we don't continually and actively seek the death of each other, and ourselves. You see, there are times when the weight of centuries seems too much to bear…" He remembered to his shame how once, a few centuries back when he'd had no clue where Demona was hiding, he spent nearly forty years seeking oblivion in the bottom of a wine barrel. "But at other times, I'm able to… how shall I put this? Find a certain satisfaction in living for the moment. And in doing what I can for the betterment of others; currently, in teaching at Columbia University." He gave a twisted smile. "While, coincidentally, doing my best to clear my good name with the students and faculty there, and correct the impression _that damned playwright_ gave of myself and my family."

Elisa's lips quirked in a wry smile. She knew exactly which 'damned playwright' MacBeth was referring to, and privately thought that while it was true that Shakespeare had gotten MacBeth's tale _completely_ wrong, he'd have a better chance of scooping out the Atlantic Ocean with a plastic toy bucket than of clearing his name with the world at large; 'the Immortal Bard's influence could be found everywhere. But rather than say that, she said as she reached for another slice of cheese on a cracker, "Speaking of students, we wanted to thank you personally for the work you're doing with those students in founding the P.I.T., as well as for being the first to speak up for the gargoyles, on 'Nightwatch'. It really means a lot to us all…"

" 'Tis the right thing to do," MacBeth said with a modest nod, " to speak up on behalf of those who are not yet allowed to fairly speak up for themselves. Although Brooklyn gave an excellent accounting for himself last Tuesday night… And though I am aiding them when they need it, the credit for founding the P.I.T. lies solely with the students."

"Still, we thank you for what you have done," Goliath said gravely, as he too helped himself to more victuals. "And we had another reason for coming out here as well. We came to invite you…" as he looked to Elisa, who smiled and pulled the white envelope out of her pocket on cue, handing it to MacBeth, "to our wedding."

MacBeth nearly dropped his glass and stared pop-eyed at them both, with his jaw dangling near his chest and his accent thick as molasses from sheer shock. "Ye're to be _wed_! In all me centuries, I've ne'er heard o' the like!"

Both Goliath and Elisa lost their smiles at his disbelieving words, and though they were still in their separate seats, they automatically leaned closer to each other as distressed couples often will, subconsciously reaching for mutual comfort and to present a united front to the world. MacBeth observed their subtle actions, and had lived long enough to recognize them for what they were and what they meant… and had lived more than long enough to develop a very good talent for covering up gaffes. He said swiftly, "Not just a simple mating ceremony, but a proper _wedding_? Ye must have found the most open-minded priest on the continent!"

Both Goliath and Elisa relaxed and smiled again, though the smiles were wry. "Actually, I think we did," Elisa said. "And the wedding's next Saturday night, in an underground shelter we call the Labyrinth. Can you come?"

"Hmm… Saturday night," MacBeth said while running his fingers through his beard, pretending to think about his schedule while very subtly giving Elisa's figure a quick once-over. (Well, she didn't appear to be noticeably pregnant…) "Aye, I've no other obligations that night that I can't put off, for something as important as this. And will you be giving me a map or guide to this Labyrinth?"

Goliath opened his mouth to reply, but just then a high-pitched beeping came from a panel mounted on the wall nearby, which slid open to show a row of lights and indicators, and a blank monitor screen. One of the lights was blinking, and as MacBeth looked it over he said, "That's the security system for the aircraft hangar; I've an intruder!" He tapped a few keys on the panel, but the monitor stayed blank and he growled, "And they've shut down the cameras at the entrance!" He reached under his easy chair to produce a laser pistol from its hidden holster as he said, "Pardon my rudeness to you, my guests, but I've a few _un_invited guests to see to…"

"We're coming with you," Elisa said bluntly as she checked her own gun in its holster (Off-duty or not, she carried her gun more often than her American Express card.) Goliath rumbled an agreement as his wings flared.

MacBeth knew that even if he told them to stay put, this pair would come after him anyway. "I'll not say no to someone watching my back, or faster transport to the hangar than my feet can carry me." And very shortly Goliath was leaping off the balcony with MacBeth under one arm and Elisa under the other, and gliding towards the hangar on his estate.

They had worked out a rough plan of attack by the time Goliath dropped MacBeth and Elisa next to the side door leading into the aircraft hangar, and continued his glide up to the hangar's roof. Both well-versed in martial arts, the two humans bent their knees to absorb the impact of landing from a moving object a few feet up and managed to stay on their feet. They gave Goliath a count of five to get into position at the roof's skylight, as MacBeth punched in the code to unlock the door. On five, he kicked the door inwards and he and Elisa charged in with guns high and ready to fire, while Elisa shouted, "Police! Freeze!"

With Goliath at the skylight and ready to dive in at the first sign of danger, and with a police-issue .38 and a fully charged laser pistol between them, they were ready for the average unsuspecting burglar, breaking in just in hopes of finding something portable worth stealing. They were more than ready for vandalizing teenagers, causing trouble just for something to do and the forbidden thrill of flaunting authority and breaking the law. But they weren't quite ready for the sight that greeted them…

A family of raccoons, all chittering angrily and squealing at their intrusion as they scampered away from the garbage can they'd tipped over and the garbage they'd scattered, next to the giant hangar bay doors.

Elisa stopped dead in her tracks and gaped at the raccoons, while MacBeth covered his face with one hand and groaned something in old Gaelic that sounded vaguely self-derogatory. After a few seconds, a heavy thump just outside the door and a deep chuckle heralded the arrival of a highly amused Goliath. "I have heard of these creatures being referred to as 'masked bandits'," he chuckled as he came inside, "but somehow, I doubt an armed confrontation or arrest is in order."

Elisa snorted in amusement as she reholstered her gun. "I sure as heck won't be filling out the paperwork for this bust. But how'd they get in here, and what shut off the security cameras?"

MacBeth sighed as he walked over to the garbage can the raccoons had tipped over and righted it, then went over to one wall that had a soft but high-pitched whistling coming from it; the whistling of wind from outside. He pointed to the junction where wall met floor, and to the baseball-sized hole that had been chewed in the wood, then to the scraps of fur next to a wire conduit that had been visibly chewed through. "Very likely some rats chewed through the wall a short while ago, and another through the insulation on the wires powering the cameras. While that rat probably died for its troubles, tonight the raccoons widened the hole it had made for getting inside in the first place, ate the carcass and continued foraging, tripping the motion detectors." He shook his head angrily. "I should drag that incompetent Banquo back here by the ears and show him this, and rehire him just long enough to dock the repairs from his pay. It was his habit of throwing the remains of his lunches out for the vermin to eat that brought this hangar to their interest in the first place!"

Elisa gave him a wry smile. "What, you mean you're not a cute-and-fuzzy-animal-lover?"

MacBeth gave her a sour look as he said, "Young lady, you have absolutely no idea of the damage those 'cute and fuzzy animals' did to my prized rosebushes this past year…" Suddenly his eyes went wide as his body tensed, and his next breath was a gasp of pain.

Both Goliath and Elisa were instantly on alert. "What is it? How are you hurt?" Elisa asked sharply, while Goliath swiveled his head to see if something more menacing than raccoons had sneaked into the hangar after all, and had fired a silenced projectile at their host.

But MacBeth shook his head and waved off Elisa's concerned hand, even as he winced. "No, no, I'm fine… I just wasn't expecting it." He gingerly moved his left arm and shoulder, then shook his head and sighed even as he flinched again. "After all these centuries, I've learned to tell the difference between my pains… and hers."

There was no need for either Goliath or Elisa to ask the identity of 'her', and the alertness level for the happy couple instantly increased by a factor of five. Elisa drew her gun again and held it ready as she scanned one side of the hangar, and Goliath's eyes flared white and his wings flared out as he scanned the other. "Where is she! Can you point to her?" Elisa barked to MacBeth, while Goliath roared into the darkness, "DEMONA! SHOW YOURSELF!"

The corner of MacBeth's mouth twitched upwards in a wry smile. "Och, relax, both of you. She's nowhere within sight or shouting distance, I'm sure of that much." He frowned as his eyes unfocused for a moment. "Somewhere between a mile and four miles away; perhaps closer to four miles, I'd wager, judging by the intensity."

Elisa reholstered her gun, but she and Goliath exchanged an uneasy glance; the shore of Manhattan was just over three miles away. Goliath turned on his communicator and growled into it, "All warriors on patrol, report your status!"

Lexington and Angela reported in, in calm and even tones; Lexington and Brooklyn had just averted a mugging, and while the would-be victim had seemed more wary and uneasy than grateful for their efforts on his behalf, he hadn't screamed and run off either. Angela and Broadway had seen no action at all since they'd started their patrol, nearly half an hour ago. "Is something the matter, Father?" Angela asked curiously.

"…No," Goliath said slowly, not wanting to bring the subject of Demona with Angela just then. Instead, he lied uneasily, "I just felt a shiver in my wings, and wanted to be sure all was well."

Lexington must have accidentally-deliberately thumbed the transmitter switch on his communicator again, because they heard a faint echo of Brooklyn's voice, muttering something about "pre-wedding jitters." Goliath scowled at that, but decided not to say anything about Brooklyn's guess; he had a sinking feeling that the more vigorously he denied it, the more they would disbelieve him. Instead, he turned his communicator back to its standby mode, then turned back to Elisa and shrugged, while recaping his wings about his shoulders again. If the patrols hadn't already encountered Demona, there really wasn't any more they could do at the moment.

Elisa wasn't willing to let the matter go just yet, and asked MacBeth, "Can you tell which direction she's in?"

MacBeth cocked an irritated eyebrow at her. "Do I look like I have a ruddy weathervane on my forehead? …Och, I suppose it's a reasonable question. No, lass, I can't tell what direction her pain is coming from. Only long centuries of painful experience have taught me the limits of how far our link extends… when it comes to pain, that is. A death is a different matter."

Elisa eyed him with morbid curiosity. "If you don't mind my asking, how far does it extend?"

MacBeth sighed wearily. "About a league and a half… in American terms, a little less than five miles. At the very limits, I'll feel whatever pain she feels rather dimly, as if merely a memory of pain from long ago. But the closer we are in distance, the more intense it becomes, until when we're within shouting distance of each other, perhaps fifty yards, my pain is just as intense as hers, and vice versa. There are no limits to the grasp of death, though, however slippery that grip is for us both; I canna bear to think of how many times I've experienced its cold touch without warning, and when far away in places no gargoyle has ever been." He shook his head. "I'll thank you _not_ to ask for details on that regard."

"No problem," Elisa repressed a shudder. And so did Goliath; as a warrior, he'd always known that someday he would die a violent death, for rare indeed was the warrior that survived to old age. But to die and come back, sometimes as a result of your own actions or environment but sometimes for no reason you can see or hear, again and again and again… it was a wonder MacBeth wasn't irreversibly insane, after all these centuries. Or perhaps he had already walked through the lands of madness, so far he'd eventually come out the other side. Unlike Demona, who seemed to be still mired in madness in her quest for revenge on the entire human race, not to mention himself and his clan for their continuing efforts to thwart her.

MacBeth winced and frowned again, as his eyes unfocused briefly. Then he sighed and turned to face Goliath, and his accent was noticeably stronger, either due to the stress of feeling faint echoes of Demona's pain or just due to being reminded of her existence. "Wherever she is, th' blue bitch has found enemies anew. Faint it may be, but I know a bullet or stab wound to a leg when I feel it, whether mine or hers."

Goliath frowned. "A wound to the leg? From your movements earlier, I had thought it was perhaps to the arm or shoulder…"

MacBeth shook his head. "I didn't speak of that one, because I'm not so certain of the source. 'Tis a difference in how our bodies are put together, that makes certain injuries harder to relate. But I've a feeling that the first injury was to her left wing. Then a hard landing on her left side, after falling out of the sky…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

On the grounds of Columbia University's main campus, Demona shrieked in mingled rage and pain as one of the bullets being fired from overhead ripped through the meat of her right thigh, and threw the brick she'd just grabbed with all her strength. She'd been weakened by her other wounds, but she still outperformed an Olympic-class shot-putter; the brick shot upwards and glanced off the rotors underneath the hovercycle that was hovering thirty feet overhead. The impact damaged the rotors enough that the hovercycle began pitching wildly as it fell out of the sky, and the Quarryman riding it screamed in panic as he was thrown off.

The man on the remaining hovercycle shouted in alarm as he broke off his pursuit of Demona and swooped to catch his buddy before he splatted against the ground. The second rider caught the first by an arm, but the extra weight unbalanced his 'cycle and he too began pitching wildly, even as he fought to drag the first rider over the seat to center their weight and stabilize their flight. Demona used the distraction to escape, limping as fast as she could into the shadows of the ivy-covered lecture hall nearby. Once she'd found concealing cover for a few moments, she panted harshly as she examined the wound in her leg, and then the damage to her wing; the rent in the membrane from an earlier bullet burned like fire, with the broken vane caused by falling hard on that side throbbing in agonizing counterpoint. She cursed under her breath at the humans, not just for wounding her but for ruining her plans to annihilate them all.

She had been so _close_! She'd used the floor plans Fanchon had provided to slip into Columbia University's Center for Communicable Disease Research (3) with ease, with a vial of colored water to substitute for their precious deadly Ebola virus. Bypassing the electronic lock on the door to the crucial lab had been laughably easy with the equipment she'd brought form Nightstone, and after that it was almost child's play to make the substitute and slip back out again, with a vial of that lovely lethal virus clutched in her talons. But just after she'd cleared the building and gained altitude to head back to Destine Manor, she'd heard the shouts of men coming from behind her… from both above and below. She'd turned to see eight men wearing dark blue hooded uniforms running across the lawn below her, and two more mounted on hovercycles and closing fast. _Quarrymen_!

Demona had heard of the Quarrymen, upon her return from Paris; the organization apparently came into existence after that fool Goliath and the rest of his clan were captured on film as they abandoned their home, after it had been destroyed by the Hunters. The news of an organized mob of gargoyle-hating humans didn't surprise her in the least; she'd seen the like before, too many times in her centuries of existence. It had been such a mob that had destroyed the clan living in Germany's Black Forest, back in the fourteenth century, and the clan living atop the Notre Dame in Paris back in 1793…. Dominique Destine had sent an employee to attend a Quarryman rally and report back on every last detail of what took place there, and the employee had described a stone statue of Goliath being shattered by hammers before the crowd's very eyes. Sitting behind her desk after reading the report, Dominique had smiled as she'd thought that if these humans actually succeeded in killing Goliath, they would be doing her a favor… but now they were chasing _her_! Demona had realized as she'd dodged the first bullet being fired at her that she really should have had a bomb planted under the podium at that rally, before it came to this…

She'd managed to evade the first few shots fired by the hovercycle riders as they chased her across the campus of Columbia University, but the fourth or fifth shot had ripped through her wing, sending her spiraling wildly to the ground. And not only had she broken her already damaged wing and severely bruised her side upon impact, but she'd broken the vial of virus! It had fallen out of her grip upon impact and shattered on the hard sidewalk, and the virus-containing solution had spilled out onto the cement. The temperature was barely above freezing tonight, and still dropping; by morning that solution would probably be frozen, and the virus completely dead and inert, utterly useless to her. And that had been the only sample of Ebola known to exist in the Tri-State area… Now she had nothing suitably lethal to bind to the carrier virus! The knowledge that she'd been thwarted yet _again_ hurt almost as much as her throbbing wing.

A powerful flashlight shone into the shrubbery, the bright light stabbing into her night-sensitive eyes, and she unconsciously snarled in protest even as the flashlight wielder shouted, "There she is!" The Quarrymen's ground crew had caught up with the chase and joined in the hunt for her. Hatred burning even brighter than her pain, she blindly launched herself out of the bushes at the wielder of the light, talons out and slashing. From the scream of pain she heard as her talons ripped through cloth and the flashlight spun away, its beam strobing crazily across the landscape, she knew she had wounded him. She wanted to keep slashing until her vision cleared, to be sure the wounds were fatal, but for now she decided on the better part of valor, and dropped to run on all fours.

Normally Demona was fast enough in her four-limbed gallop to match an Olympic-class sprinter, but she was hampered by her wounded leg, still bleeding profusely, and weakened by the pain from her leg, wing and abused ribs. But she managed to keep an almost steady pace as she loped across the campus, and kept barely ahead of the squad of men chasing her… not noticing that their numbers had been reduced by more than the one man she'd wounded. And even if she had noticed, she wouldn't have been able to do anything to prevent their reappearance; she heard the roar of engines as she dashed through an alley between buildings, and saw two Quarrymen on their matching dark blue motorcycles as they roared around the corner of a building and stopped, blocking the other end of the alley.

Stopping and getting off their cycles while they charged up their hammers was a mistake, as Demona swiftly taught them. Rather than slowing or turning, she lunged straight for the rider on the left, barreling into him at full speed with talons out and fangs bared. As she'd hoped, instead of swinging his hammer he instinctively flinched and threw his arms up in front of his face, when he saw an enraged blue demon going straight for his throat. His hammer flew out of his grasp as she knocked both him and his cycle over while leaving deep bloody slashes in his arms, but as she rolled off him and prepared to run again the other rider attacked. His hammer was uncharged, but it still carried one helluva whallop as he swung it into her side, the force of impact cracking three ribs as it sent her sprawling. Lying dazed on her back, struggling to stay conscious and to get breath back into her lungs again, she watched as the Quarryman twisted the handle of his hammer and charged it up, then came forward with the grim stride of an executioner.

Demona waited until the very last instant, until the hammer-wielder had committed to his swing, before rolling swiftly to one side. The pinions of her broken wing screamed with renewed agony as she rolled across them, and sharp daggers of pain dug into her vitals from her cracked ribs, but she managed to avoid the hammerblow and get back onto all fours, and lashed out with her tail as she did so to sweep that Quarryman off his feet. Snarling and sobbing with pain, she nonetheless managed to resume her staggering four-limbed run away from his rapidly approaching comrades, dodging across the neatly manicured lawn to head for the nearby dormitories. If she could get her talons on a couple of resident students, and use them as hostages… Surely these humans would let her go rather than see any youngsters die right in front of their eyes!

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

"Ohmigod, Cindy, come quick!"

The screech rang out from the room Cindy Sanders shared with Lucy Landingham on the fourth floor of their dorm at Columbia University, and Cindy hurried back to her room from the communal bathroom, nearly dropping her toothbrush and toothpaste in the process when she tripped in her too-large fuzzy slippers. "What, what is it?" she panted as she ran inside.

"I think it's a gargoyle! A real gargoyle, not just somebody in a costume!" Lucy shouted as she leaned out the window and pointed. "And it's being chased by gangsters or something!"

"A gargoyle, here at Columbia!" Cindy jammed into the windowframe beside Lucy, and leaned out so far that Lucy grabbed her nightshirt so she wouldn't fall out and go splat. "Ohmigod, you're right! And those creeps chasing it, they've gotta be the Quarrymen! The gang that crashed the first P.I.T. meeting, and put Mary and Maddie and half the people there in the hospital!" Other windows popped open on their floor and below them, with other ladies attracted by the commotion and leaning out to see what was happening, and they heard what Cindy was saying. Some of them were also friends of Mary Simmons and Madelyn Printemps, two of the founders of the fledgling People for Interspecies Tolerance, and while they didn't all believe their theories on gargoyles actually being _people_, they sure as Hell didn't believe in people getting away with beating up on their friends.

"Jeezus, Cindy, they've got _sledgehammers_!" Lucy's eyes went wide with fear. "Th-they're trying to kill it!"

"You mean kill _her_," Monica May reported tensely from the next window over, as she peered through the binoculars she usually used to spy on the guys' dorm across the way. "That's a girl gargoyle down there, unless the guys got boobs too! And I think she's been hurt!"

"We gotta help her!"

"Yeah, but how! They're armed! What are we supposed to do, throw our textbooks at them?" Monica's roommate Josephine asked sarcastically.

Everyone jittered and muttered in agitation for a moment, before Cindy snapped her fingers and said, "I got an idea! C'mon, Lucy; Jo, meet us in the hall!" as she popped back inside. She grabbed her two-inch-thick chemistry textbook, and the two of them dashed down the hall, down to where the fire-fighting equipment was mounted into the wall. Josephine joined them just as Cindy swung the textbook spine-first into the glass covering, and it shattered with a satisfying crash.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Demona was within a hundred feet of the dorm when her path was cut off abruptly by the Quarryman on the remaining motorcycle, who swung his hammer at her like a polo mallet as he cut in front of her. He overbalanced as he did so and tipped over his cycle, yelling as he slid with it several feet over the wet grass before stopping with one leg trapped under it, but Demona hardly noticed. He'd managed to connect, just a glancing blow but fully charged and enough to set every nerve in her body on fire with agony. She screamed and finally collapsed, talons digging into the earth as she spasmed in aftershocks.

Her head was roaring like an entire clan of gargoyles, and every limb quaked uncontrollably, but she managed to turn her head as she sensed humans approaching her. The five remaining Quarrymen, all coming up with hammers high and ready. She wished she could see beneath their hoods before they killed her; then when the curse that bound her life to MacBeth's revived her, she'd take great pleasure in hunting them down and killing them with their families.

"This is the end, Demon!" the leader said triumphantly, as he raised his hammer for the killing blow. "My family has waited a thousand years for this moment!"

"Hunter!" Demona snarled, or tried to, but all that came out was a slurring garble. Now she knew what the third Hunter brat had been up to while she was away! If she could only—

**WHOOOOOSSHHHHH!**

If Jon Canmore had been planning to say any other words of triumph, they were washed away, as was his hammer, by the jet of water that arced down and hit him square in the face and upraised arms.

"GOT HIM!" "_Yaayyyy_!" "Get the others, too!" "Third floor, get your hose!" "Yeah!" "Let's wash these creeps right out of our hair!" "(Jeez, Stephie, can't you ever stop punning?)"

At first, Demona could only stare in disbelief at the jet of water that swept over the other Quarrymen, knocking them back and off their feet, away from her. Then, as she became aware of the clamor of female voices, she slowly turned her head to stare in equal disbelief at the dorm she'd been heading for; nearly every window was filled with young women looking out and cheering, as two from the fourth floor wielded a fire hose on the Quarrymen. They… they were defending her!

Behind her, two of the Quarrymen ducked and dodged the jet of water as it swept over them, and started shouting at the dorm women to stop it, and what did they think they were doing? They had a monster to—**WHOOOOSSHHHH** and whatever else they were going to say was washed away when the second hose came into play, this one aiming at their legs and hitting them hard enough to bowl them over.

"That one's for Maddie!" The second pair of hose-wielders shouted triumphantly, while others yelled, "You leave that gargoyle alone!" "Go on, get out of here!" "And don't ever come back!" "Go soak your heads!" "(Jeez, Stephie, how corny can you get?)"

Fire sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer; the humans must have set off the fire alarms when they'd grabbed and turned on the hoses. Demona decided that now was an excellent time to get out of there, while all the Quarrymen were sprawled on the grass, coughing up water, sputtering and cursing futilely. She unsteadily got to her hands and knees again, and began crawling on all fours until she felt she had recovered enough to break into an unsteady four-limbed run again. Some of the females in the dorm shouted invitations for her to run inside, saying they'd protect her, but she wasn't about to take that chance; she ran into the shadows of an alley instead, to climb and find a safe hiding place amongst the rooftops until her wounds healed. But she paused halfway to the alley, and shouted over her shoulder at the students, "Thank you!"

"She spoke to us!" "They really can talk!" "This is so cool!" "You're welcome!" and other glad shouts followed Demona, as she fled into the shadows.

**TO BE CONTINUED**…

Author's footnotes:

1 : For the non-Catholics in the audience, the shaken Border Patrol agent was reciting the first few phrases of the 'Paternoster', the Lord's Prayer in Latin.

2 : No, I didn't make that up. Columbia University's Philolexian Society once counted Joyce Kilmer, author of the infamous poem "Trees", as not only a member but as its vice-president. So every fall, they hold a Bad Poetry Contest in his memory, and gather to read their own grotesque verse to each other. (In this author's opinion, "Trees" wasn't really all _that_ bad; a little lame, but not horribly so. But some of the poetry that some of the students in past years has come up with, has been… Let's put it this way: If you've ever read "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", that group of aliens known as the Vogons, that tortured Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect half to death with bad poetry readings, would be _proud_. ) The contest is typically judged by a panel of Columbia professors, ones noted for both their literary tastes and their strong stomachs. The contest is not limited to members of the Philolexian Society; all members of the Columbia community are invited to submit up to three works, or simply to attend, to heckle the contestants and throw tomatoes. (And somehow it just seemed appropriate to have, lingering at the back of the crowd, this serious-looking fellow with pale blond hair, glasses and an almost emotionless expression standing there with a pad of paper and pen in hand, scribbling down the most revulsion-inspiring ones for later use.)

3 : Yes, I made that up. Columbia University does not have a Center for Communicable Disease Research, though it does have a College of Physicians and Surgeons. And even if such a center existed at the university, they absolutely would not be keeping something as deadly as Ebola under such lousy security.


	2. Part 2: Meetings and Turnabouts

**LIFE GOES ON**

_THE TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'… PART 2: MEETINGS AND TURNABOUTS _

By Kimberly T. (e-mail: kimbertow at yahoo dot com)

Monday morning, 9:00 a.m. Half an hour early for their appointment; Mary Simmons glanced at her three companions, and hoped that nobody brought up the fact that they could have stopped for those donuts and lattes after all. She doubted they would; considering the fickle nature of Manhattan traffic and that nobody wanted to be late for a meeting of this importance, they'd all agreed to cut their morning classes and leave in plenty of time to arrive here, on the fifty-seventh floor of the Aerie Building, for their appointment at 9:30 with the head of Xanatos Enterprises' PR Department. But between 9:00 and 9:30, somebody's stomach was bound to start rumbling, probably hers because she'd been too nervous to eat breakfast…

After the gargoyle named Brooklyn had left the second PIT Crew meeting, which had been 500 more successful than the first one, it had been decided by a majority vote of the attendees that the P.I.T. would begin holding their meetings on Thursday nights starting the next week. Being both a Journalism major and the owner of her own website, Mary would use her 'Columbia Crowd' web pages to publish details of what went on at the meetings, for those people who might be interested but couldn't attend.

Two nights later, Professor MacDuff had met with Mary and Keith Hanford, as the three of them seemed to have become, by unspoken decree, the triumvirate in charge of the P.I.T. The professor had pulled out one of the Quarryman pamphlets that had been circulating around the campus, and quoted the old proverb that "Rumor will run a thousand miles, while Truth is still putting on its shoes."

There was no need for them to read over the pamphlet; all of them had seen it before. Keith said tersely that he'd taken one home to show to his parents, and his father had been painfully reminded of his youth in Alabama, and of the pamphlets that KKK had made decades ago, when spreading their racist propaganda. The Q-men left no stone unturned, when 'warning' people about "The Gargoyle Menace": the pamphlet accused them of everything from hunting humans as their nightly prey to spreading diseases amongst the human population, to even threatening the virtue of innocent young women. They'd even included a few biblical quotes, taken out of context of course, that "proved" gargoyles were Humanity's ancient foe and that their ultimate subjugation and/or destruction had been decreed by God as part of Man's Destiny. "Like a few Bible quotes makes any difference," Mary had snarled contemptuously, as she'd thrown the pamphlet on the coffee table in disgust. "Gargoyles are never mentioned in the Bible by name, probably for the same reason polar bears, parrots and paramecium aren't; nobody back in ancient Israel knew they existed!"

"Too true," Professor MacDuff had agreed with a sage nod. "But the fact remains that, in order to counter these pamphlets, we are going to have to generate some publicity that's favorable to gargoyles. And while I was able to have the flyers made for Tuesday's meeting and rent the meeting hall, my pockets are not infinitely deep, certainly not enough that I can afford to print pamphlets such as these by the thousands. Or rent billboards, or make commercials for radio or television…"

"The Q-balls have _billboards_ now!" Mary had groaned. "And commercials!"

"I haven't seen any anti-gargoyle commercials yet," Professor MacDuff had hurried to reassure them. "I believe that the videotape hoax recently exposed by Travis Marshall of "Night Watch" has made them wary of that avenue for the time being. But yes, they have a billboard up now; I regret to say I saw it on my way to campus this morning, urging citizens to beware 'the gargoyle threat' and support the Quarrymen in their quest to 'make the streets safe for Humanity again'."

"Crap," Keith said succinctly, normally more polite around his elders and teachers but not tonight. "We need to get our hands on some serious money for advertising the _truth_, and fast… before the gargoyles find themselves facing angry mobs armed with makeshift clubs and torches."

Mary eyed him disbelievingly. "What, like in a Frankenstein movie?"

Keith's face was grim. "Actually, I was thinking of the LA riots."

Keith was right, there were no limits to the extremes of violence that an angry or frightened mob could achieve. And if the fear and hatred sprang from ignorance, then truly educational publicity was in order, and for that they needed big money… as in, a good corporate sponsor. And they had just the corporation in mind…

Mary placed the first phone call to Xanatos Enterprises herself, between classes on late Friday morning. She'd figured on spending at least twenty minutes being bounced from receptionists to secretaries for various people before finally being able to make an appointment to fill out an application to someday have an interview with the lowest-ranking flunky on the Public Relations totem pole, in hopes of eventually having enough time to plead their case about needing sponsorship and advertising money for the P.I.T. To her surprise, less than ten minutes later she had an appointment with the head of the PR department, for 9:30 a.m. on Monday. It was almost as if they'd been hoping somebody like her would call.

Friday night, most of Saturday and a large chunk of Sunday were occupied by marathon brainstorming sessions between Mary, Keith and nearly a dozen other P.I.T. members, fueled by pizzas and sodas. Who was going to go to the appointment? What would they say? Should they go with some prepared layouts for pamphlets and storyboards for commercials, or let the corporation decide how it wanted its money spent?

By Sunday night, they'd hammered out who would be on the representative committee, and what they would bring with them. Mary would go, cast and crutches and all, both because her years on the Debate team at her old high school had prepared her for public speaking and to show that they'd met opposition already, and were bloodied but unbowed. James 'Slick' Sliddick would go, not because he was an African-American (although that didn't hurt, showing that they were aware of racial intolerance as well) or because he was the football team's star quarterback but because he was a senior in Business Administration. To prepare for this, he had boned up on the hazards and pitfalls as well as the benefits of corporate sponsorship, and prepared a tentative list of what they were looking for in sponsorship and what the sponsoring corporation could expect from them in return. Lucy Ling, a petite Asian-American in her second year at Columbia's School of Law, had been chosen not just because she loved a good confrontation (Mary predicted she was going to make one helluva trial lawyer someday), but because she had already listed over a dozen of the many legal hurdles they and the gargoyles would face in their quest to make them equal and protected under the eyes of the law, and had produced copies of other nonprofit organizations' bylaws so they had a model for drafting theirs. Brian Coleman, a sophomore with a major in International and Public Affairs and a minor in Advertising, would be the fourth member of the party, and would be carrying the pamphlet layouts and commercial storyboards they had designed over the weekend.

They'd made three different pamphlet layouts and two possible storyboards, a rough draft of the P.I.T.'s proposed bylaws and James' list of sponsorship desires and expectations, and had prepared answers for a dozen of the most probable questions that they thought the PR head might ask. And they'd all 'dressed for success' for the interview; Mary glanced down at her cast, and thought ruefully that it was a pity that it didn't go with the smartly tailored business suit she was wearing. And she wished again that Professor MacDuff was coming with them; his excuse for not doing so seemed pretty flimsy, considering how much he supported the gargoyles as well. But without him, they had no one on the committee who was over 23; what if the PR head dismissed them all as just 'a bunch of idealistic youths'? Mary doubted that would happen, but still, she worried. She'd faced dozens of opponents and tough situations in her years on the debate team, but there was a lot more riding on this than just a nice little certificate for her bedroom wall and a little trophy for her school. This could make the difference between the gargoyles surviving in this city, or being overrun by fear-crazed mobs everywhere they went.

Time passed slowly, the ticking of the clock seeming to slow down just a little more with every minute that brought them closer to their appointment. Mary reminded herself every other minute that she shouldn't be surprised or disappointed if they had to wait past 9:30 a.m. to see Mr. Stephens, the department head; it was a well-known 'Dilbertism' that the greater the gap between boss and employee, the longer the employee should expect to be kept waiting to see the boss for an appointment, and the business truism probably applied to supplicants like themselves as well.

At 9:15 a.m., the outer door to the office opened, just as Mary's stomach began to rumble. A pale man with blonde hair, spectacles and a severe, emotionless expression came into the office; Mary thought to herself that he had "corporate flunky" written all over him with a bold marker. The only odd note was that he was wearing gloves indoors… He told Mr. Stephens' secretary, "Tell Mr. Stephens that his 9:30 appointment has been cancelled."

_WHAT?_ Outrage brought Mary lurching to her feet, with her three compatriots right beside her. "Excuse me, Mister, but his 9:30 appointment is _right here_," she said pointedly as she gestured to herself and the others.

The man only looked at her and said, "Precisely. Follow me, please; Mr. Xanatos can give you only five minutes," as he turned on his heels and walked back out the door.

Mary, Brian, James and Lucy all stared at each other. "Did he say…?" "David Xanatos himself!" "…Hey, wait up!" as they hurried out the door after the employee.

They rode much farther up in the elevator, and Mary's ears popped twice more while they were en route; she figured they had to be close to the top of the Aerie Building now. The door opened, and the blonde employee led them down a lushly carpeted hall to the office of David Xanatos, CEO of Xanatos Enterprises and reputed to be the third-richest man in the world. A darkly handsome man who set aside the papers he was holding and smiled upon seeing them, and gestured to the chairs in front of his desk and the coffee and refreshments tray set to one side as he said, "Ah, the People for Interspecies Tolerance! I've been looking forward to meeting you. Come in, sit down! Would you like some coffee or pastries? I can guarantee they're better than what you'd find in your student cafeterias…"

No student ever turns down free food if he or she has a choice about it. Mary and the others helped themselves to fresh pastries while they introduced themselves. "As I'm sure you already know, sir," Mary said before biting into her éclair, "we've come in hopes of getting corporate sponsorship, and funding for educational commercials and pamphlets to counteract that fearmongering poison the Quarrymen are spewing out about the gargoyles." It was a stronger and more emotionally biased sentence than she would have used on Mr. Stephens, but if this guy had gargoyles actually living in the castle with him, he had to have strong feelings about the Quarrymen as well.

"A very good idea, and I commend you for it," Mr. Xanatos said approvingly.

Mary had just about bitten into her éclair when she paused again. Why had she just gotten that feeling that the other shoe was about to drop?

"However, I can't be your sponsor."

_Thud_. "Huh?" Mary blurted out. "But… but you've befriended the gargoyles! Brooklyn told us!"

"That's right, I have. And I'm scandalously rich, with money to spare for making commercials and pamphlets and such. Which is exactly why I'm the wrong choice for a sponsor for the P.I.T. Look at it this way: if you saw a commercial that was extolling the wonderful environmental benefits of nuclear power, and at the end of the commercial was a notice saying that it had been paid for by the local nuclear power plant, would you or would you not be just a little bit skeptical about just how truthful that commercial had been?"

The students exchanged rueful glances. Brian admitted, "Highly skeptical," and the others nodded in agreement.

"Exactly. And I'm already on the Quarrymen's black list as a traitor to humanity, who has supposedly sold my soul to the devil in return to material gain, et cetera, et cetera. And if Xanatos Enterprises paid for your commercials and pamphlets, the Quarrymen would decry them as simply tools of my own creation, to serve my own ends. And the P.I.T. would be denounced to the public as my paid stooges…"

Mary almost seemed to deflate as she slumped back in her chair and sighed. "I hadn't thought of that aspect…"

Xanatos smiled wryly. "To be honest, nor had I, until it was pointed out to me. However, I'm not going to send you away entirely empty-handed. I happen to know of a few other corporations whose CEO's are unofficially but sincerely friendly to gargoyles, and I've very quietly contacted one of them and asked him if he'd be willing to help you out. He's at least willing to see you and let you apply for sponsorship, although I warn you now that if he thinks you're worth sponsoring, he's going to expect a serious commitment from you in return; he's a man known for his integrity, and for demanding that same integrity from everyone he deals with. My personal assistant, Owen, is setting up the appointment for you right now, and he'll give you the information before you leave." Then he picked up his phone and said, "And now, I dislike having to cut this short, but I'm overdue for a conference call with some foreign offices. Feel free to take some of the pastries with you…"

There was no mistaking that they had just been dismissed, and Mary and the others shrugged and got to their feet, with Brian carrying Mary's coffee and pastry for her as they went back out to the outer office.

The outer desk was manned by the same man who had escorted them to Xanatos' office in the first place, and as they came out he hung up the phone and scribbled something on a sheet of paper. He handed the paper to James as they came up to him; Mary wondered briefly and resentfully if he just assumed James was their leader because he was the biggest man in their group, or because he was wearing the sharpest suit. He told them, "You now have two appointments with two different corporations whose CEO's are business acquaintances of Mr. Xanatos. Your first is for this very afternoon, at 1:30 p.m., and the second is for 8:30 a.m. tomorrow." He paused to adjust his glasses and continued, "I will warn you in advance, the CEO you will be meeting this afternoon is well known for her volatile temper, and bringing up the fact that you were referred to her by Xanatos will _not_ be a point in your favor."

James glanced at the paper and the addresses and times written on it, then looked ruefully at the assistant. "Let me guess; she doesn't like Mr. Xanatos, but she owes him a big favor and this is how he's calling it in?"

The assistant coughed into his hand and admitted, "Something like that. You may have better success with your appointment at Cyberbiotics tomorrow morning, but I strongly urge you to give this afternoon's appointment your best effort as well."

"We will, and thank you," James said as they all went out together. Once the students were all in the elevator, he handed the paper to Mary and said with a shrug, "I hadn't figured on cutting classes for this afternoon and tomorrow morning, too, but 'in for a penny, in for a pound.' How about the rest of you?"

"I'm in," Mary said firmly, and Brian and Lucy added their assent. "Let's get back to campus for now, so we can make arrangements for others to take notes for us for the classes we'll be missing. And I want to go over our stuff one more time before the meeting this afternoon, and see if we've overlooked anything…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back in his office, Xanatos sighed heavily, his mind not really on the conference call he was currently engaged in. He'd hated turning them down for sponsorship, and he was a little amazed that the students had swallowed the flimsy reason he'd given for doing so; there were at least two ways he could think of off the top of his head that could have prevented the P.I.T. from being labeled as his paid stooges. But he could hardly have given them the real reason for his refusal; that he was forbidden by the Illuminati to help or support them in any way. He had to admit he owed a lot to that organization, because without them and the Phoenix Gate, he wouldn't have been able to mail himself that antique coin and found his business empire. But there were times when he wished there were some way to be free of them, just be done with the whole secret society business. Not that he ever would be…

Owen came back into the room just after the call was finished, and Xanatos tried to smile at him. "Good thing Fox is mending fences with her father now, isn't it?" It had been Fox who had first called her father last night, to ask for his help in providing what David could not. "That gives Renard another good reason to take these kids under his wing… although just having an opportunity to help the gargoyles will probably be reason enough."

"Indeed, sir," Owen said with a straight face. "I have no doubt that they will have a productive meeting with him tomorrow morning… Though that is contingent, of course, upon the outcome of their meeting this afternoon."

Xanatos blinked at him, as he raised his coffee cup to his lips again. "This afternoon? Who are they meeting then?"

"The CEO of Nightstone Corporation; Dominique Destine."

Xanatos sprayed his coffee clear across the room.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Over at Nightstone Corporation that afternoon, Candace kept a wary eye on the door leading to the CEO's office. Ms. Destine had been in a very distracted mood for most of the morning, not really focusing on her board meetings and appointments, but no one had dared to ask her what was on her mind instead. But by lunchtime, she'd been her usual foul-tempered self, and had nearly bitten the head off of the poor flunky who'd been just a trifle too slow in delivering a report to her office. As Ms. Destine's secretary, hired after her previous one had vanished without a trace (though rumor had it that she'd been arrested for some terrorist act, and that she'd been using a false name and Nightstone as cover for her activities), Candace was becoming experienced in ducking out of the way when her employer's temper erupted. But the distracted mood this morning seemed to make her later mood even fouler than usual, and Candace wondered if it wasn't time to update her résumé again and move on to greener pastures. Sure, Ms. Destine paid well, but if Candace hung around long enough to be fired by her, like so many employees had been recently, she wouldn't get a good recommendation for her next job.

Just then the phone rang, and Candace picked it up, automatically giving the required spiel. "Nightstone, CEO's secretary speaking…" It was the front desk calling, saying that the People for Interspecies Tolerance had arrived, twenty minutes early for their 1:30 p.m. appointment with Ms. Destine. Puzzled, Candace glanced at the appointment ledger; she didn't remember an appointment with… Well, there it was, in her own handwriting; P.I.T., at 1:30 today. Funny that she didn't remember writing it down before now, but she certainly recognized her own handwriting; maybe she'd scheduled the appointment sometime last Thursday morning, when she'd been so distracted. She'd been trying to discreetly help poor Marcy in hurriedly updating her résumé while the girl was cleaning out her desk after being fired, without attracting Ms. Destine's attention to herself… she shrugged the matter aside, and told the front desk to send them up.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

On their way up to the executive offices of Nightstone Corporation, Mary took one more quick look at her own attire and that of her companions, and hissed for Brian to straighten his tie. As he hurriedly did so, Mary's thoughts flickered back to the conversation they'd had just before piling into James' car to drive here. James had done a little online research on Nightstone Corporation over lunch, and reported that Nightstone's leading products were munitions and weaponry. "This is probably gonna be one tough interview," James had concluded grimly after telling them what he'd found. "Think about it; we're gonna be asking a corporation that makes weapons of war to help us work for peace…"

"Hey, let's not give up hope already," Brian, normally a rather quiet and shy individual, had spoken up. "This lady may surprise us. Remember, the Nobel Peace Prize was founded by the guy who invented dynamite…"

"He's right," Mary had said. "So this will probably be a harder sell than it would have been for Xanatos Enterprises; we already knew that. But between the four of us, we could probably convince anybody who's not an active Quarryman to root for the gargoyles instead!" And now, as they rode up to their second interview of the day, Mary silently repeated to herself, _I hope_.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

At her desk, Dominique scowled down at the quarterly reports, forcing herself to concentrate on them instead of on what had been occupying her thoughts for most of the morning. She'd come to a conclusion, and the matter was therefore settled, and certainly made no difference in her ultimate goal; and if she just poured more effort into her business, surely that little voice of doubt inside her head would shut the Hell up…

The students that had saved her from the Quarrymen last night had obviously thought that she was another human like them, clad in a Halloween costume. She had seen some of those gargoyle costumes herself, last Halloween; at a distance and at first glance, they were quite realistic looking. (Oh, how her heart had leaped into her throat when she'd looked out the window and seen those children dressed as hatchlings; then her crushing disappointment a few moments later, when she'd realized they were nothing more than trick-or-treaters… Part of her had wanted to go out and slay all those laughing and shouting imposters on the spot, and she might have, except for that odd stinging mist in her eyes, making it hard to see…) They had thought she'd been a human just like them, being set upon by a gang of common thugs, and had thought they'd been defending one of their own. That was all! No humans would ever stir themselves to fight their own kind, to save a gargoyle that had sworn to destroy them all!

(But she had been loping on all fours towards the dormitories, and humans couldn't easily run on all fours anymore; they had foolishly evolved away from that ability. And she had heard some students shouting as they'd trained their fire hoses on the Quarrymen, "You leave that gargoyle alone!" And when she had impulsively shouted thanks to them while running for the safety of the shadows, some of them had sounded both surprised and thrilled to learn she spoke their language. They would have had no such doubts about a fellow human…)

They had thought she was wearing a costume! A costume-wearing human, nothing more! She had been saved from yet another painful death by a false assumption. It was actually rather ironic, because no doubt if those students had known the truth about her, they would have used the fire hose on her instead, in defense of their own lives. And no mere fire hose would save them, or the rest of their despicable race, once she had found another sample of Ebola or some other highly lethal virus to combine with the CV-1000 carrier virus. When she finally had her talons on an inescapable contagion that would rid the world of hated Humanity at last…

The intercom unit on her desk buzzed. "Ms. Destine?" her secretary said quietly. "Your 1:30 appointment is here; the P.I.T."

P.I.T.? Oh, the Pacific Institute of Technology. Nightstone was currently in negotiations with them over a new microprocessing chip that could enhance her corporation's weapons technology considerably. (Though she'd thought their representatives weren't due in town till Wednesday…) She dismissed her momentary confusion and told her secretary, "Tell them it will be another fifteen minutes," before turning back to her paperwork. In reality, she could have set the papers aside and had them ushered in immediately, but she had long since learned the value of keeping people waiting; it drove home the implication that speaking to her directly was a privilege, and not to be treated lightly.

Fifteen minutes later, her secretary opened the door and herded four people into the room. The frown Dominique had been wearing for hours already deepened again; judging by the appearance of the four people who'd just come in and were milling about uncertainly, waiting for an invitation to sit down, their collective ages wouldn't add up to Demona's first century of life. She knew that the 'Digital Revolution' had resulted in thousands of youngsters with digital expertise being accelerated up the business ladder far faster than had been the norm, but these young pups looked like they should be working in mail rooms, not executive suites! Well, at least they had dressed well; if any of them had shown up in blue jeans, she would have tossed them out instantly for displaying such disrespect to a powerful corporate CEO. And she was mildly pleased to note that one of the youngsters was wearing a cast and crutches, but still dressed as well as the others; to fly cross-country and come to this meeting when obviously recently injured showed that she, at least, regarded it as highly important. She curtly gestured for them to sit, then made them wait an additional thirty seconds while she gave her secretary the papers she'd been working on and further instructions. Finally, her secretary left and she nodded for them to begin their presentation.

The youngster with the crutches stood up awkwardly and said, "Good afternoon, Ms. Destine, and thank you very much for agreeing to see us on such short notice. My name is Mary Simmons," and then she turned and introduced the other members of her party. The other girl stood up and nodded respectfully to her in greeting, and the two boys even bowed clumsily as they were introduced, and Dominique's eyebrows went up. Computer geeks with decent manners? Would wonders never cease…

After introducing her last companion, the first girl blathered something about this meeting really meaning a lot to them all, and Dominique's momentary surprise promptly gave way to irritation again. It was obvious now that they were sucking up to her in hopes of sweetening the deal for themselves, but she wasn't having any of that. "Yes, yes, and my time is limited, so get on with it," she said irritably.

If the speaker was taken aback by her abruptness, she hid it well. "Of course," she said briskly, and gestured to the other girl, who stood up and held out a pair of folders containing sheaves of papers. "We have here a proposed sponsorship agreement that details what you can expect from the executive committee of the People for Interspecies Tolerance for the three months, at least, and what we hope to have from you in return. We also have--"

"The **_what?_**" Dominique interrupted, as the words Ms. Simmons had spoken actually registered in her brain, and brought her business-oriented thought processes to a screeching halt. "The… People for…"

The four youngsters exchanged quick, uneasy glances, but the speaker repeated slowly and carefully, "The People for Interspecies Tolerance." Then she added, with an uneasy chuckle, "Also known to some as 'The Gargoyle-Lovers', and 'Second-Favorite Targets of the Quarrymen'…"

Dominique just gaped open-mouthed at them for a moment, before demanding seemingly despite herself, "Why are you _here_!"

Ms. Simmons took a deep breath, before continuing, "We're seeking corporate sponsorship, ma'am. For the advertising and media funding that both we and the gargoyles need, in order to promote better understanding and acceptance between our two species." And while Dominique just continued to stare at her in utter astonishment, she said in a manner that was somehow both forceful and pleading, "Ma'am, the gargoyles are _not monsters_; they're just people of a different species! There's no need to hunt them down and exterminate them, like the Quarrymen want to do, and it's _wrong_ to do so; they just want to live in peace with us!"

Now Dominique sat back, her features shifting from the gape of astonishment to a sneer of derision. Now she had them pegged; the same sort of starry-eyed idealistic youngsters who had gone around spouting about Peace and Free Love during the Sixties, without having the faintest idea how to achieve their high-minded goals; most of them had seen their ideals collapse like pricked balloons upon first real contact with sharp reality. "Oh, really? And I suppose you've actually spoken peaceably with a gargoyle?"

She expected a stammering answer along the lines of 'Not yet, but we're hoping' but that's not what she got. "Yes, I have," Ms. Simmons said bluntly. "With two of them, in fact. The first one, a she-gargoyle named Angela, visited me in the hospital after the Quarrymen attacked me, and--"

Dominique interrupted again, blurting out without thought, "You spoke with my--with a female gargoyle?" she hastily corrected herself. She internally cursed herself in blistering terms for the verbal slip, but news of her daughter, still loved despite her perverse insistence that humans could be trusted, was too precious to her to be passed up.

"Yes, ma'am. And not only did she speak our language, she speaks it as well as any New Yorker--and better than some I could name," Ms. Simmons said with a wry grin. When Dominique did not smile in appreciation of the attempted joke, she continued, "She thanked me for starting the P.I.T. and told me she was sorry for my having been hurt by the Quarrymen just for speaking up on her people's behalf, and she hoped we wouldn't let the Quarrymen silence us… and we won't," she finished determinedly. "Someone has to speak up for them, to stand up to the Quarrymen and call them exactly what they are; a group of hate-mongering 'speciesists' no better than the Klu Klux Klan! And it's as wrong for them to persecute the gargoyles as it is for Klansmen to persecute African-Americans, just because they're different!"

Dominique echoed acidly, "They're 'just different'. Really. Gargoyles are more than 'just different', child… Or are you aware that our two species have been at war for over a thousand years?" Instantly, she silently cursed herself again for the slip of the tongue in saying, 'our two species' instead of 'our species and theirs', and hoped the slip wouldn't be noticed.

"We know, Ma'am," Ms. Simmons responded somberly. "We know that entire clans of gargoyles have been massacred in the past… which is why we've started the P.I.T.; to prevent that from happening again in the future." Then she raised her hand as Dominique began to speak again and continued, "And before you say anything, _yes_, we're aware that humans have been killed in the past by gargoyles as well!" That left Dominique with her mouth hanging open again as she said, "But war is _not_ the answer; violence only begets more violence, on both sides! We have to stop killing, and start _talking_ out solutions instead, or we as humans will have no right to use the term '_humane_' ever again."

Dominique sat back again and shook her head in disdain. "You sing an old song… but one that is painfully out of tune with reality. Humanity is still at war with _itself_, or do you need me to list all the wars going on around the globe this very instant?" She almost indulged in gloating that she could name several of those conflicts immediately, as her company was involved in many of them, supplying high-tech weaponry for one side or the other (sometimes both), but did not. Instead, she continued, "And then there are all the massacres of humans _by_ humans. There was mass genocide in Rwanda, only two years ago, and the 'ethnic cleansing' is _still_ going on in Bosnia. And let us not forget the Killing Fields in Cambodia, in the late 1970's; and of course Germany, during the Second World War…"

Now the one named Lucy Ling stood up and interrupted, her voice tinged with both anger and contempt as she said, "And I'm sure you can list every major atrocity committed by Humanity, clear back to the Crusades." (That made Dominique shut up and freeze for a moment; she could indeed do so, as she had _lived_ through all those centuries and witnessed many of those atrocities first-hand, but she wondered how this young pup could possibly know that…) "We're not denying that Humanity, as a race, has done some unconscionable things in the past. But we are saying that it's time to _stop_! To stop the intolerance, the racism and prejudice, and all the conflicts and killings and wars that result from them."

Now the one called James Sliddick stood up, his expression severe as he said, "Ma'am, you don't have to tell a Black man about racism and intolerance. Just last year, I was involved in an incident of racism, when four drunken Skinheads thought it was their civic duty to 'put them niggers in their place,' and attacked me and my date off-campus. But they were _stopped _before they could do more than give me this scar," as he shoved up his sleeve to show a thin pinkish line across his forearm, a scar from that knife attack, "by some friends of mine. Some _White_ friends of mine," he slowly emphasized. "People who knew what was right and stood up for it, even though some of them got hurt themselves in the fight. And it was people like them who fought with my parents and grandparents during the Civil Rights Movement, and put an end to racial segregation and the Jim Crow laws! Maybe we can't change the whole world, ma'am, but we know we _can_ change our own society for the better, because it's been done before!"

"Very noble sentiments," Dominique commented acidly. "And I will acknowledge that the Jim Crow laws are no more. But as you yourself witnessed, racism is still being practiced today. You said you were attacked last year, and just this last summer, one of your kind was _dragged_ to death by a chain from the back of a pickup truck. You say you can change society, but can you really prevent people from hating?"

"We have to _try_, ma'am," the fourth member of their party said stoutly, as he stood up with his companions.

"Hatred and anger usually spring from fear," Ms. Simmons said, "and fear springs from ignorance! Most people have only seen gargoyles as _monsters_, not as people. But we can change that, by telling them the _truth_, not those lies the Quarrymen spew!" She gestured to Brian's overlarge briefcase, and he began to open it as she continued, "We'll start with educational pamphlets, to be distributed not just on the street corners and in the subways but in major businesses as well, and if we have enough money we can buy commercial time on the air, and--"

"And we'll be leaving now," Mr. Sliddick said abruptly, interrupting Ms. Simmons' impassioned speech and putting a hand firmly on his companion's case to prevent him from opening it. Then he put his hands on his companions' shoulders and began gently urging them towards the door, as he said firmly, "Sorry to waste your time, Ms. Destine. Have a good day."

The abruptness of their departure left Dominique open-mouthed again. She just sat there at her desk and watched them leave, hustled hurriedly out by Mr. Sliddick even though at least Ms. Simmons was clearly wanting to say more. As the last one left, they closed the door behind them but it bounced off the doorjamb, and swung partway open again. Moving almost automatically, she got up to close the door the rest of the way, and reached it just in time to hear Ms. Simmons whispering furiously to her companion, "Why did you cut me off like that! We didn't even get to the commercial storyboards!"

Her companion said softly but with intensity, "We were _wasting our time_, Mary. That woman will _never_ do _anything_ to help the gargoyles…"

_**Whaat**!_ Only great self-control kept Dominique from ripping the door open again, and ripping that insolent pup's throat out with her fingernails.

But the man continued, "She's too used to _hating_. I've met 'her kind' before; people like her _need_ somebody to hate, in order to justify their own miserable existence. And this one has probably spent too many years hating to stop now. Trust me on this; she'd never even admit to the _possibility_ that her hatred is unjustified, because to do so would be to admit that she's _wasted_ a good part of her life, working for war instead of peace. Come on, let's go. Hopefully we'll have better luck tomorrow…"

For long moments Dominique just stood there on the other side of the door, literally shaking with rage, grinding her teeth and clenching her fists as the soft sound of footsteps on the lush carpeting faded into the distance and the quiet hum of her office at work. How **_dare_** they! How _dare_ that insolent pup judge her like that? How dare he say that she… that she…

For five long minutes, Dominique Destine stood there trembling in silence.

Then she went back to her desk and sat down, picked up her pen…

Threw the pen across the room and buried her head in her arms, and wept.

For the next fifteen minutes or more, she just sobbed into her hands, ruining her makeup and the papers on her desk. She was utterly oblivious to her secretary meekly peeking inside the still-open door, then quietly shutting it, going back to her desk and canceling all appointments and meetings for the rest of the afternoon.

After sobbing for a while, Dominique just sat there in silence for a while longer…

Then she began sobbing again, though not as fiercely as before; quiet but hopeless sobs, tears of utter despair.

Finally, she called her chauffeur, left the office, and went out to get stinking drunk.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

The building face didn't look all that impressive, in the pale light of the winter afternoon sun; common brickwork, but well-kept with very little graffiti. The sign posted next to the entrance simply read, **_Sugar & Spice_**. If not for the _No Minors Allowed on the Premises_ sign posted underneath it, one might never have guessed that this was actually a rather famous, very exclusive strip club. As he walked into the club just before opening time and told the bouncer at the entrance that Officer Sung had referred him to the manager, Matt Bluestone reflected that sometimes having friends who worked in Vice paid off in interesting ways.

Tony the manager came walking up a few minutes later, in that deliberately casual way that those who had dealt with policemen many, many times in the past seemed to cultivate. "Afternoon, officer. What can I do for you?" His ever-so-casual manner perceptibly relaxed, in both surprise and humor, when Matt told him he wanted to hire a couple of his strippers--no, let us be politically correct, the exotic dancers he employed--for a private bachelor party, somewhere off-premises. "That can be arranged… though I have to warn you, the going rate for employing _my_ fine ladies for such a function is usually more than the average policeman can afford to pay."

"Money is not a problem, I can guarantee," Matt told him, privately sure that whatever the going rate was, Xanatos could probably pay it out of petty cash. "But I need to interview the ladies first, to select the right ones for the job; there are a few conditions attached." Then he hefted the bag he'd brought with him as he added, "Including wearing specific outfits for the occasion…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Monday evening at the castle found the gargoyles roaring a waking greeting to the night, and Owen Burnett awaiting them in his usual stoic manner, indicating that Xanatos would like to speak to the clan leader after he had finished assigning the nightly patrols. Goliath frowned slightly but went ahead with the assignments, giving Brooklyn and Hudson had the first patrol, himself and Angela the second, and Broadway and Lexington the last patrol of the night. Once he'd finished, Goliath followed Owen inside, while Lexington headed for his computer (of course), and Angela let Fox lead her aside to talk about the party that they were going to surprise Elisa with on Friday night. (It was the same night that the male gargoyles were planning to have Goliath's bachelor party, though he didn't know about it yet either, or so they hoped.)

Bronx stood on the battlements and whined fretfully after Brooklyn and Hudson as they left for their patrol, but Brooklyn ignored that in favor of glancing at Broadway, as he launched from the castle as well and headed straight for the harbor. Brooklyn eyed his rookery brother with growing perplexity; was Broadway going to do a nonstop circuit around the entire island _again_! Every night since Friday, he had been going out to do laps; either just after his patrol, or well before it so he had time to recover from huffing and puffing his way all the way around Manhattan before going out to look for criminals. Goliath had given him permission to fly the laps solo after Broadway had promised to stay on the island's perimeter and high above the height of most buildings, where he was least likely to attract attention. But why was Broadway wearing himself out like this, night after night? When Brooklyn had asked him about it, he'd only replied tersely, "Gotta get in shape," and Brooklyn certainly couldn't argue with that. But a complete circuit of the island's edge was nearly _thirty miles_ long; Broadway had to be pushing himself to the limits to go the entire way without stopping to rest, and if he _did_ run into trouble before finishing his circuit, he'd be in no shape to handle it. Why was he so desperate to lose weight that he was risking his life for it?

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

"…not sure I heard you clearly," as Goliath shook his head, as if hoping to shake out something stuck inside his ears. "You just said… Demona _thanked_ some students for _saving_ her!"

Xanatos spread his hands out in a there-you-have-it manner. "I know, it sounds about as realistic as a tap-dancing elephant, but that's what he said! MacBeth also said he hadn't believed it either, until he actually spoke with some of the students who live in that dorm. And they're all swearing up, down and sideways that after they drove the Quarrymen off with the fire hoses, the 'blue lady gargoyle' told them 'Thank you!' before running away. And how many blue-skinned, red-haired female gargoyles do you know who live in this city?"

"Only the one, unfortunately." Goliath growled softly as he shook his head again. "We can only hope that whatever deviltry Demona was up to on that campus, those Quarrymen put a stop to it before the students drove her off. It would be far too optimistic to assume she was only out to stretch her wings." Xanatos nodded soberly, and Goliath sighed before adding, "Thank you for bringing me in here to tell me about this privately."

Xanatos gave a wry smile. "You still haven't told Angela about Mommy Dearest being back in town, eh?"

Goliath shook his head again, looking pained. "No, I have not. Only Hudson, Brooklyn and Lexington know, and they have strict orders not to mention it in front of the others, even Broadway; he's the worst of us all at dissembling, and I fear he may let something slip in an unguarded moment." He sighed as he added, "And if Angela learned about _this_, I fear she'd take it as a positive sign that her mother is reforming and changing her views on humanity…"

"When it's more likely for Slobodan Milosevic to win the Nobel Peace Prize than for Demona to let go of a thousand-year-old grudge," Xanatos inserted.

"But Angela would not see that, and would immediately begin seeking her mother out, hoping to complete the reformation," Goliath said with a sigh. "And likely fall into whatever trap Demona has planned for just such an occasion."

"And you may be right… but you know that sooner or later Angela _will_ find out Demona's back in Manhattan. Especially since I can almost guarantee that the P.I.T. will start crowing about this incident as their first victory over prejudice against gargoyles. And if Angela finds out you've been deliberately keeping the knowledge from her…" Xanatos didn't finish the sentence, but he didn't have to.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Monday evening in the Labyrinth found five gargoyle clones literally dancing with excitement after they woke up and finished shedding their stone skins. "Going to lie-berry, going to lie-berry!" Malibu, Brentwood and Hollywood chanted gleefully together as they did an impromptu ring-around-the-rosy.

"Not yet you're not," Maggie said firmly as she tapped Malibu on the shoulder, and handed him the broom and dustpan. "First you've got to clean your room! You know the rules, and it's your turn tonight, Malibu. So let's get all that gravel swept up…"

"And tonight, only two of you are going," Talon said firmly as he came into the room. "The others will go on another trip. No, don't start whining!" as he waggled a stern finger at the clones, who had indeed started to protest. "You know the rules for outings; only a few of you at a time, instead of all of you at once. If there are too many of you in the air at once, it'll draw the attention of those nasty Quarrymen." Actually, the truth was that all five gargoyle clones together were just too hard to control and keep quiet, particularly when they were all excited like they were now; just one excited gargoyle could raise as much ruckus as half-a-dozen kindergarteners on a sugar high. "And we're not going to leave until almost midnight, so you can just settle down for a while…"

Tonight's outing was going to be special, though; Talon had to admit that. For tonight, they were going to begin raiding one of the old city libraries; the one above the NYPD 23rd Precinct stationhouse that had, for some reason, been boarded up and abandoned with books still inside it long before the clocktower above it had become home to a gargoyle clan.

When Hudson had visited the Labyrinth on Saturday night and Maggie had told him how they were lacking good reading material down here, he had told them about the library, which had been damaged but not completely destroyed in the missile strike that had left the clocktower in ruins. While it was true that the books in that library were decades old, nothing dated more recently than the 1960's, that didn't mean they weren't still readable, and possibly of better quality than many of the books being published on the mass market today. On Sunday night, Talon had made a quick pass over the stationhouse himself, and confirmed what Hudson had told them; that the library was disheveled, with bookcases overturned and books scattered on the floor, but still largely intact and accessible from above.

Elisa had told them that the construction crews that had been assigned to the task of rebuilding the damaged precinct building hadn't gotten much past clearing away the debris that had been knocked loose in the stationhouse itself, enough for the police to move back in and get back to work, before all work had halted by order of the unions; some sort of labor dispute. Rumor in the precinct had it that negotiations were deadlocked, but the Union reps were beginning to weaken; the workers had made it plain to them that they _wanted_ to get back to work, and quickly. After all, Christmas was coming, and their kids were going to want to see toys under the Christmas trees… Talon knew that once construction began again, those books were going to be hauled away, so they didn't dare delay long. The best course of action would be to take a couple of clones at a time, to sneak in during the darkest hours of the night and quietly carry the books out in as many sacks as they could safely carry, and sweep their tracks up behind them as they left. He doubted that they'd be able to collect all the books before construction began again and workers cleared the place out, but even just a dozen or so sacks of books, chosen wisely, would satisfy the Labyrinth's reading requirements for a long time to come.

Tonight Talon chose Burbank and Hollywood to come with him as book-carriers, over a storm of protests from the other three. But Maggie reminded Delilah, Brentwood and Malibu that they'd get their turn on another night, and in the meantime they had their tunnel patrols and rat-catching duties to fulfill, and good gargoyles always patrolled their territory and protected the little children of the Labyrinth from rats, didn't they?

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

It ain't easy being a rookie police officer, just a few months out of the police academy and finding out that as much as the academy tried to train you for real-life situations, the few aspects of the job that they _didn't_ cover at the academy turns out to be a helluva lot. Especially when you're a member of the 23rd Precinct, and assigned to the Gargoyles Task Force.

Rookie John Davis leaned back in his chair and gave a sigh of relief as their latest interviewee left the squadroom. "Gone at last," he muttered _sotto voce_. "We really should have taken that one's statement at his home, so we could have faked a call or something and escaped faster."

Fellow rookie James Carter gave him a look of wry sympathy as he came back from the coffeemaker with two fresh cups. "No kidding. I thought we'd heard every nutcase variation on the theme by now, but I gotta admit, even on _drugs_, I couldn't have imagined a way to blame the gargoyles for the Watergate scandal."

Davis snorted even as he gratefully accepted the coffee from his buddy. "Well, why not? We've already heard them being blamed for acid rain, just about every unsolved murder, rape and robbery on the books since the 1920's, the extinction of a particular breed of pigeon, the rise of Communism, the overthrow of the rightful government of Rhodesia and the JFK assassination. Oh, and let us not forget the kidnapping of Elvis from Graceland, leaving an unidentified corpse to be buried in his place, and thereby of course proving that the King is still alive…"

"Well, jeez, that last one was almost to be expected, wasn't it? Seeing as how we get more gargoyle sightings than Elvis sightings these days. But you just wait until Christmas; I'll bet you ten bucks right now that we'll get a report of gargoyles sneaking down a chimney to steal presents from under a tree."

"Hell, I'll bet you ten bucks we'll get at least _five_ of those. After, of course, insurance forms have been filled out on some of those more expensive presents…"

"You're getting cynical in your old age, Davis," Carter said wryly, well aware that neither of them had yet to see twenty-three years of age. But Detective Maza was right, even a few months of working in this precinct was apt to have that effect on an officer…

"Ah, let's blame the gargoyles for that too." Davis drained his coffee cup in three gulps and stood up determinedly. "Okay, what's next?"

"Just typing up the reports from the cases we got so far," Carter shrugged. "Detective Bluestone is still out on that missing kitty, and Detective Maza is still out on that robbery." The two cases he was referring to were also typical of the cases assigned to the Gargoyles Task force. Detective Bluestone was at the residence of an elderly woman who was insisting that gargoyles had catnapped and eaten her precious Fluffikins. (More often than not, the unfortunate victims of crimes such as this one were either found lying in the street with decidedly un-gargoyle-like tire treads running across the carcass, or wandered home unscathed a day or two later.) Detective Maza's case, on the other hand, had the potential to be more serious; a gargoyle had reportedly broken into a pawn shop and made off with some fairly expensive and dangerous items. Either Carter or Davis would have been _delighted_ to go with her and investigate it, but Carter had been busy with taking the statement of a homeless man who insisted the gargoyles had stolen his _kidneys_ (even though he was still up and walking around, whole if not exactly hale and hearty), and Davis had been stuck with interviewing the Watergate nut. _Watergate_, yet! Carter finished with a sigh, "You know, when we were first assigned to this task force, I was thrilled to death. But now I'd almost rather be walking a beat in the South Bronx…"

"Yeah," Davis sighed. "But you know, it wouldn't be so bad if we didn't get tossed _every last_ stupid case that even _hints_ of gargoyles being involved." As had been explained to them the last time they had complained, the GTF had been formed by the Commissioner expressly for the purpose of investigating gargoyle sightings, and learning all they could about these bizarre creatures. And if the captain chose to interpret that to mean they had to investigate every piddly reported incident, no matter how much the outright _silly_ ones clogged up the system, that was her prerogative. "If they'd give us only the ones where they've got _proof_, like gargoyle tracks…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Gargoyle tracks, such as the ones Detective Maza was looking at right at that moment; the alley leading away from the pawn shop clearly showed a set of three-toed tracks in the dust and grime. But after only a second or two of looking at them while photographing them, she sighed and got to her feet again, stripping off the latex gloves she used for examining evidence. "Another GI, guys. Mr. Pedrotty, we'll let you know if your items turn up in any other pawnshops around here… Because whoever did this, he definitely wasn't a gargoyle."

"What do you mean!" Mr. Pedrotty exclaimed, outraged. "Of course it was a gargoyle; just look at those tracks!"

"I did," she retorted. "And if you'd care to take a closer look at them yourself, you'll see the treadmarks in them." She pointed to the faint but discernable jagged lines running across one three-toed footprint, looking remarkably like the prints from a popular brand of sneaker. "Those treadmarks mean that this was made by a 'GI', a Gargoyle Imitator; somebody wearing one of those costumes that came out last Halloween. The makers of the costumes put treads on all the costume boots, so people weren't as apt to slip and fall while they were walking around on tip-toe."

In point of fact, Xanatos had ordered that done not just as a safety feature, but so the police could readily identify fake gargoyle tracks. And after weeks of investigating crime scenes like these, Elisa could tell at a glance that this particular tread was from one of the more inexpensive costume models; model A74B, to be exact, the glider-winged version with an optional beak attachment. With that information and the costume color described by their one witness, a neighbor who had glanced out of his window across the street just as the thief was running away, they could do a vendor search and find out which stores had sold that model and color of costume, and who had bought said costumes from them using credit cards or other traceable methods of purchase. But instead of sharing that little tidbit with the pawnshop owner, she said, "And that explains the clear marks of the padlocks on your gun cases being _cut_, probably with bolt cutters, instead of merely broken apart. One thing we do know about true gargoyles is that they're incredibly strong; they wouldn't have bothered with bolt cutters. Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Pedrotty, but your burglar wasn't a gargoyle, just an ordinary crook." She sighed as she said somewhat wistfully, "Things really were easier when they stuck to stockings over their heads and rubber Nixon masks…"

Just then, Morgan left the patrol car he'd gone back into to take a call, and came up to them, with a wry smile on his face. "Mr. Pedrotty, would you come with me? I think we found your burglar already, and your stolen goods."

"Already?" Mr. Pedrotty said with surprise. "That was fast…"

"Well, they do call us 'New York's Finest'," Morgan said modestly. Then he sheepishly grinned as he admitted, "But this time, we had it pretty easy."

Elisa turned to him with interest sparking in her eyes. "What'd we get, another SCOW candidate?" In the Manhattan precincts, SCOW stood for Stupid Criminal Of the Week, and cops liked to trade stories between precincts of dumb criminals and the ways they had been caught. Last Week's SCOW for the 23rd Precinct had been another gargoyle imitator; that one had broken into a liquor store and robbed the till, then tried to run for it while still in costume. But very few people have really mastered the art of running on tiptoe, particularly in boots with three toe-like protuberances sticking out in front. The SCOW had tripped over his own feet and knocked himself out cold on the doorframe he'd slammed into, waking up in the 'paddywagon' to the sound of the cops snickering in the front seat. And not two days after that, another costumed crook in the 14th Precinct's jurisdiction had robbed a late-night diner at gunpoint, but had actually gotten his rubber-spiked tail caught in the door on the way out! By the time he'd turned around and wrenched it free, an off-duty policeman had already gotten the drop on him, and the crook ended his decidedly short-lived crime spree in a jail cell.

"Not this time; I think we can thank 'The Originals' for this one." Morgan turned to Mr. Pedrotty and explained, "Another patrol car just called in, less than two blocks west of here; they found a man in the remains of a gargoyle costume unconscious and hanging upside-down from a lamppost. Somebody ripped the tail of his costume off and used it to tie him up there by his feet, and the wings were ripped off and used as a makeshift sling to stow what looks like about a dozen rifles up out of reach as well."

Elisa tried hard to suppress a knowing smile, but a little of it leaked out anyway. That was Brooklyn's style, to hang them up somewhere high by the ripped-off tails; Broadway and Lexington were more apt to just tie them up with the tails and the remains of the wings. "The Originals" really, _really_ didn't like criminals wearing gargoyle costumes, and when they came upon one committing a crime in the course of their patrols they always wrecked the costume one way or another, and used the remains to aid in restraining the crook for the police. Aloud, she said, "Well, Mr. Pedrotty, if you've got your records handy, let's go over there and see if the weapons they found are yours, and if the missing jewelry is at the bottom of the sling. Then we'll take our little 'gift-wrapped package' back to the precinct for booking…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the precinct, Carter was stirring more sugar into his coffee when he said abruptly, "You know, we're going about this the wrong way."

"What do you mean?" Davis asked as he turned to him.

"Well, the whole point of investigating every last gargoyle sighting is to see if we can detect a pattern to their movements and stuff, right? That's why we're plotting all the incidents that aren't total false alarms up on the map in the back of the squadroom. But one thing we _haven't_ done is go straight to the source."

Davis reminded his friend patiently, "We already tried to get a warrant for the Aerie Building and the castle on top of it, remember? But both Bluestone _and_ Maza came back from the judges empty-handed."

"Yeah, David Xanatos must have friends among the judges. But I'm talking about _another_ source; one right above our heads!" as Carter pointed at the ceiling. "Remember, when those Scots terrorists blew up the clocktower in the first place, they released a clip that showed gargoyles leaving the ruins! They tried to blame the gargoyles for the explosion, but at her hearing the woman terrorist—what was her name, Birdie Can-something--"

"Robyn Canmore," Davis supplied helpfully.

"Right, and she said that they'd really been trying to kill the gargoyles living there! But so far as I know, nobody's really been up there looking for evidence of the gargoyles themselves; the bomb squad people just went up there to verify there was no unexploded ordnance, and then they left it alone. And the construction workers barely touched the upper levels before they went on strike. I'm betting we'll still find evidence of gargoyles up there…"

"But what good will that do, if they're not up there anymore?"

"It'll give us some clues as to their daily habits; you know, what they eat and stuff. Come on, didn't you ever see any National Geographic specials? You never know, we just might find something important…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

"Now, this is important," Talon whispered seriously to Burbank and Hollywood as they alit on the remains of the broken balustrade outside the clocktower, each carrying two large and empty burlap sacks, and Hollywood carrying a scraggly-looking broom as well. "You have to be very, very quiet in a library; that's a very important Rule. You don't talk if you don't have to, and when you do, you talk only in whispers. And there's no running, or jumping, or doing other noisy things; you must be very, very quiet in a library. Understand?"

"Very, very quiet in lie-berry," Hollywood said as he and Burbank nodded seriously.

"That's _library_. Li-brar-y," Talon said slowly so they could tell the difference, before leading them inside.

Once they were down in the library, he lit the old lantern he'd brought with them, keeping the flame down low to provide a dim light that flickered across their faces. Neither he nor the gargoyles needed much light, anyway, thanks to their night-adapted eyes; if not for the necessity of reading the lettering on the library section labels, book titles and pages, they could have made do with the faint light filtering in through the gaping holes in the ceiling and dispensed with the lantern entirely. He led Hollywood and Burbank over to the children's books section, set the lantern down and set them to work in choosing books to put in their sacks. Neither of them could really read yet, but he assured them that if the pictures looked interesting, the book would probably be okay. He gave them each one sack apiece to fill as they pleased, then took the other four and the small pocket flashlight he'd brought and headed for the other sections. He planned to fill two sacks with general fiction books, and the other two with nonfiction and reference books. He was really hoping to find some how-to books on home construction, electrical work and even indoor gardening; the more work on the Labyrinth that his people could do for themselves, the more confidence they had in their own abilities. And if he was lucky he'd find some art books, just for Maggie, to go with the set of pencils and art supplies he'd had Elisa buy for Maggie's birthday the next Wednesday. Maggie had been doing some drawing lately, mostly pictures of the Labyrinth children at play, and in Derek's admittedly biased opinion she had a real talent for it…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

"Yeah, there it is, just like I remembered," Carter said with satisfaction as he pointed at the ceiling of the broom closet he and Davis had just walked into. They had debated ripping away the boards that sealed the door to the stairwell that led to the upper floors, but decided that would draw too much attention to themselves right now. Unless and until they found some solid gargoyle evidence, they wanted to keep their plans to themselves, after seeing other rookies being derided by senior officers for their 'harebrained ideas' on new and improved ways to fight crime. For their first exploratory foray, Carter had remembered seeing one of those fold-up ladders and a trapdoor in the broom closet, last time he'd gotten a mop to clean up some spilled coffee; that probably led to at least the next floor, and from there they could probably find a way up to the clocktower itself. "Got your flashlight?"

"Check," Davis said as he brandished his black Maglite. The massive flashlight, powered by four 'D'-cell batteries, was favored for use by police officers, both for its powerful beam of light and for its alternative use as a riot baton in sticky situations. But when he clicked it on, the light coming from the lens was so dim it was barely noticeable. "Nuts, the batteries are drained. I knew I shouldn't have let my neighbor borrow it yesterday… But I know where they keep the spare batteries; be back in a flash," as he went back out the door.

After waiting for a minute or two for Davis to return, Carter, admittedly the more impatient of the pair, decided that even if he'd agreed to wait for Davis before exploring the clocktower ruins, it wouldn't hurt to at least poke his head up through the trapdoor and see what he could see from there. He pulled down the ladder, climbed up it and eased open the trapdoor…

To see a gargoyle not six feet away from him, sitting cross-legged on the floor, reading a book by the light of a flickering lantern. An honest-to-God real gargoyle!

No, _two_ gargoyles! Both of them were reading, and he must have gasped or made some other noise because one of them lifted its head and looked around _and saw him_!

And just lifted a hand and waved to him in a vaguely friendly but distracted fashion, and went back to reading. The motion of its companion attracted the attention of the other one, but all it did was the same thing—sort of wave to him—before poking his companion with one massive claw and gesturing for it to look at something in the book it was holding. The first one looked at the page, then smiled and nodded vigorously at the other one, who then put the book in a sack lying next to him and pulled another one off the shelf.

Carter gradually unfroze all his muscles, enough to slowly and carefully ease up another two steps, until more than just his head was poking out the trapdoor. Then he said slowly, feeling like a total idiot but not knowing what else to say, "I come in peace…"

The one closest to him, a giant orange creature, held one of those claw-tipped fingers up to his black-tusked mouth and whispered sternly, "Ssshhh! Talon says be very quiet in library!"

Carter swallowed hard, and said nothing for a few more seconds, while the gargoyles continued to pick up books, look at them and put them in bags. Then he swallowed again, and whispered, "I-is that your name? Talon?"

The big orange one shook his head and whispered, "No. I Hollywood." And since introductions were being given, the greenish-looking bearded one pointed to himself and said, "I Burbank."

_Hollywood_! _Burbank_! Carter had the increasing feeling that he'd taken a sharp left turn off of Reality Street a few minutes ago. But he gamely struggled on, "A-are you taking the books to your new home?" And when they nodded, he asked softly, "Where is your new home?"

"Labyrinth," the gargoyle named Burbank said helpfully.

Just then another voice came drifting over the bookshelves, hissing with annoyance. "I can hear some whispering over there! When I said for you two to keep quiet, I meant it! Don't make me come over there…"

At the sound of that voice, both of the huge creatures in front of him cringed like whipped puppies. Carter abruptly decided that he absolutely, positively did _**not** _want to meet the sort of creature that could inspire such fearful obedience in gargoyles, not without a full SWAT team as backup. Holding a frantic finger to his lips to keep them quiet, he very carefully and quietly eased himself back down the stairs, and closed the trapdoor over his head.

Just after he closed the door, he heard soft footsteps moving across the wooden floor. "Are your sacks full yet?" The unseen master of the gargoyles demanded. When the gargoyles replied that they were almost full, he said, "Okay, that's enough for this trip. We'll come back for more on another trip. No, don't give me those looks! Come on, let's get back to the Labyrinth…"

There were some soft rustling and swishing noises; then came the soft but heavy tread of footsteps amidst those rustling noises, moving away from the trap door overhead. Carter decided it would be prudent to wait a full five minutes to make sure the coast was clear, before going back upstairs.

While he poised frozen on the stairs, Davis opened the door to the broom closet, waving the large flashlight that presumably now had fresh batteries in it. "Ready when you are," he said cheerfully.

Carter frantically shushed him, then plastered his ear to the trapdoor to listen for possible footsteps returning. But he heard nothing from above, while Davis whispered tensely, "What is it? …Are they up there _right now_?"

"They were," Carter finally murmured, as he relaxed. "But I think the coast is clear now."

"What happened? Did they attack you!"

"N-no… actually, the two I saw were almost… friendly." Carter stared at the trapdoor without opening it, while the word "Labyrinth" ran through his head. The gargoyles lived in a labyrinth… Finally, he turned back to Davis and said, "This may sound crazy, but do you remember that kid's movie from about ten years ago, with giant Muppets and a labyrinth and David Bowie as a Goblin King?"

"Yeah…"

"Did you ever wonder if maybe they were really on to something?"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Carter related to Davis what he'd seen, what the two gargoyles he'd seen had said to him and what their unseen master had said to them, while the two of them went up the ladder and explored the abandoned library. Davis had gone back and gotten the camera in expectation of finding fresh footprints, but when they went through the trapdoor, they were disappointed to find that the gargoyles had swept behind them as they were leaving; no tracks remained, just a path swept relatively free of dust. "And how are we going to prove that a gargoyle did this?" Davis complained, as he took a picture of the swept path anyway, just because. "Or that gargoyles took books off the shelves, if nobody knows what books were there on the shelves in the first place? The others will never believe us, if we tell them the gargoyles came by for a visit without having any proof…"

"They'll think I've been smoking crack or something. Especially since a lot of them won't _want_ to believe me," Carter said glumly. He remembered how some members of the precinct had reacted to hearing that their stationhouse had been home to a pack of gargoyles. No less than six officers had immediately booked thorough physical exams with the station docs, to be checked for the Hanta virus or whatever weird disease it was that the Quarrymen said gargoyles spread. Two more officers had outright begged the captain for transfers to another precinct, even though she and Detective Maza assured them that the gargoyles weren't living there anymore, and one guy had freaked so badly he'd just turned in his badge and moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Davis tried to cheer him up by saying, "Well, at least Bluestone should believe you. I mean, hell, he believes in UFO's and the Loch Ness Monster and everything else…"

"Yeah, but you know what Maza will say; she's skeptical of about 99 of the gargoyle reports we get. You know that's why we're doing more than our share of the interviews; Captain Chavez told her to stick to fresh crime scenes, because she kept getting in-your-face with people and telling them they were all full of crap, and she was about thirty seconds away from getting an official reprimand. She'll say I'm 'just a rookie with too much imagination and not enough common sense', and if I mention that bit about a 'labyrinth', she'll probably recommend me for a Psych evaluation," Carter predicted gloomily. Davis had to admit he was probably right. After another minute or so of futilely playing his flashlight beam over the bookshelves, Carter suddenly snapped his fingers and said, "I got an idea. If the guys want proof, we'll _get_ them proof…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Tuesday morning, the delegation from the P.I.T. Crew had their meeting with the CEO of Cyberbiotics.

Mary glanced at the dark-haired, pale-faced man who ushered them into the CEO's office and finally figured out why he looked so familiar; except for the hair color, he could have been a perfect twin of the corporate stooge who had brought them to see Mr. Xanatos the day before. He even had the same utterly emotionless manner; did they teach people to act like that in Corporate Stooge School, or what? Or maybe the two men were related somehow; there were supposedly families in England that prided themselves on producing generations of butlers to the nobility… Then she dismissed him and her speculations from her mind, upon her first sight of Mr. Halcyon Renard.

Mr. Renard was an old, _old_ man; his hair was reduced to a few white wisps on a scalp freckled with the "liver spots" of aging, and his face was wrinkled with more lines than the average topographical map. The hand he raised to gesture them towards a seat was so withered it was nearly clawlike, and the voice in which he said, "Be seated" was more raspy than a three-pack-a-day smoker's. But his eyes… now Mary knew what they meant by 'a piercing gaze', because when he swept that gaze over her, those eyes pinned her to her seat like a butterfly to an entomologist's board. A fierce intelligence and an indomitable will shone out of those eyes, and Mary had no doubt at all that as old and decrepit as he looked on the outside, this man could eat tigers for breakfast.

The bizarre chair Mr. Renard was sitting in turned out to be a fancy-rigged powered wheelchair, which he wheeled out from behind his desk to sit directly in front of them, almost as if daring them to flinch away from this terribly graphic reminder of what the cruel hand of Father Time could ultimately do to them all. But Mary's years on the debate team served her well, and she didn't flinch, though she caught movement from the corner of her eye and thought that James might have. Instead, she said courteously, "Thank you very much for agreeing to see us on such short notice, Mr. Renard."

"Yes, I'm sure you're grateful," he rasped with a slight disdaining gesture of his hand to cut off further words. "Now, as you can see, I am old and unwell, and my remaining time is precious. So let's dispense with the pleasantries and get to the heart of the matter: you youngsters say you want to help the gargoyles and you need my money to do so. Just how do you propose to help them?"

Well, at least this one knew what they were there for! Mary took a deep breath, and began.

They went through their presentation, showing him the pamphlet layouts and commercial storyboards they'd created, as well as their drafts of the P.I.T.'s charter and bylaws, and their proposed sponsorship agreement. Mr. Renard asked them several hard questions, dealing with not just the financial but the legal and political aspects of their campaign to aid the gargoyles, but if Mary couldn't answer his questions then either James, Lucy or Brian was able to step in.

Twenty minutes later Mr. Renard finished making notes and corrections on some of the papers they had handed him, and called his aide back into the room. "Mr. Vogel, take these young people straight to our Legal department, and tell Radison that I want a corporate sponsorship contract for the People for Interspecies Tolerance on my desk for signing before noon today; here's the rough draft. Then have Accounting set up an account with them at the same PR firm we use; they're to tell Schuster and Barnes that we'll pay the P.I.T.'s advertising expenses in full for the rest of this fiscal quarter and all of the next, and after that we'll renegotiate." Then he brandished the best of the three pamphlet layouts they'd brought with them as he added, "And that I expect to receive one of these pamphlets in the mail, along with at least 100,000 other New York residents, no later than next Tuesday!"

When they walked out of Mr. Renard's office, after thanking him so profusely that he'd begun to get irritated again, Mary wanted to go dancing in the streets, cast and crutches and all. This was almost as much of a rush as when the gargoyle named Brooklyn had talked with them; the P.I.T. was funded now, and ready to roll!

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Meanwhile, over at Xanatos Enterprises, another conversation had not gone nearly so well. Clifford Adkins, a senior member in the corporation's local Human Resources department, winced as the sound of a phone slamming down reverberated through the receiver he was holding, and gingerly put the phone back down in its cradle. His assistant looked at him apologetically, saying, "I'm sorry, sir, but she really insisted on talking to you…"

"It's all right, Dale; I've heard worse. It's what I make the big bucks for," Adkins joked weakly. But he scowled at the phone, thinking that the last couple of names he'd been called in the course of that 'conversation' had really been uncalled for. He'd explained to the lady on the phone--IF 'lady' could be used to describe such an obvious harridan--all the steps she'd have to take in order to be considered for the job she'd been asking about, as politely as he could, especially considering how irregular her request had been in the first place. His quite reasonable request that she follow the usual procedures for personnel looking to be hired by Xanatos Enterprises did _not_ make him a 'tight-assed, bureaucratic toad!' He was not normally a vindictive man, but he made a mental note that if the first batch of required papers ever did show up, he'd make a point of dealing with them personally.

Not half an hour later, the fax machine over in the corner of the office began whirring and spitting out sheets of paper, and when Dale went over to pick them up, she glanced at the name emblazoned on the top sheet--L. Lacey--and reflexively winced. "Sir? She's decided to fax to us instead of using the mail system…"

"Such a pity about all these new-fangled electronic machines," Adkins said dryly as he came over and took the papers from her. "Sometimes, they just don't seem to work properly, and valuable data gets lost…" as he strode straight for the office shredder.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Tuesday afternoon, Elisa Maza sighed as she saw the stark outlines of the many buildings of Riker's Island Correctional Facility through the windshield of her Fairlane. She'd been coming here nearly every Tuesday for the last two months, and each visit brought up those same conflicting feelings within her, but she always came anyway.

After showing her badge and passing through a series of checkpoints, a prison guard ushered her into the infirmary of the main prison, and the man lying in the third hospital bed from the end looked up and saw her, and smiled. A little portion of Elisa's heart twitched in response; even after being shot and paralyzed from the waist down, and jailed on charges of terrorism, destruction of public property, impersonating a police officer and a host of lesser crimes, Jason Canmore still had a beautiful smile…

Despite the fact that she was a female police officer, and any female walking into an all-male prison can expect plenty of rude, lewd and crude remarks from the prisoners there, most of the other inmates lying in infirmary beds appeared to studiously ignore her. The few who started to make catcalls were swiftly and harshly hushed by their neighbors, the long-term infirmary patients; they had learned from previous visits that it didn't pay to talk dirty when this particular lady cop came around, and not only because she had a razor tongue and could cut a guy's manhood off with it faster and nastier than a homemade shiv. Prisoner #8773659B, the one she always visited, had a way of making his displeasure known despite his paraplegic state, and inmates who were a pain in the neck when she visited inevitably found themselves in a lot _more_ pain before the next morning's muster.

As she did every time she came, Elisa laid a carton of Marlboro's on the bed and asked, "So, how's it going?"

"Doing better," Jason said with determined cheer as he set the cigarettes aside. He didn't smoke, and she knew it, but they both knew how vital those cigarettes were to Jason's progress in physical rehabilitation.

The medical staff on Riker's Island was notoriously understaffed, undersupplied and overworked, and geared more towards patching together prisoners who had been knifed by their fellow inmates than towards helping a man who'd been shot in the spine regain his mobility, or the use of paralyzed limbs. But one trait Jason Canmore had inherited in full from his ancestors was a deep-seated stubbornness, and incredible determination to overcome whatever obstacles lay in the path to success. Those traits had helped them to track down and battle the Demon over a thousand years, even if they'd never succeeded in killing her (at least not permanently), and now they were just what was needed for rehabilitation. Within a week of his being shot, Jason had taught himself how to use one of the dilapidated wheelchairs the infirmary kept on hand, and had largely concocted his own rehabilitation regime from that point on. Every day he wheeled himself down to the gymnasium to lift weights, and he paid another inmate in the basic units of prison currency—packs of cigarettes—to help him exercise his legs to prevent their atrophy. He also used the cigarettes to trade for favors from some of the prison guards, who were also nicotine addicts just from breathing the smoke-filled air of the prison yards for years on end.

Today, after telling Elisa he was doing better, he closed his eyes and leaned back with a grin on his face, and told Elisa, "Hit me in the left knee."

"Huh!"

"Go ahead! Not hard enough to break anything, just hit it!" And when Elisa shrugged and slapped his left kneecap sharply, with his eyes still closed he grinned even wider and said playfully, "Ah, you hit like a girl!"

Understanding, Elisa grinned from ear to ear as she whacked his knee again. "You can feel that, huh?"

"Started feeling there again last Sunday," Jason confided as he reopened his eyes. "Still nothing below it, and nothing _above_ the knee either for some reason, but it proves my spinal cord wasn't _completely_ severed by the bullet; and the more I exercise, the more I could regain."

Elisa knew, as she knew he knew, that _complete_ rehabilitation was _extremely_ unlikely. The cold and brutal truth was that the severe spinal trauma Jason had suffered would likely leave him always partially paralyzed. But that truth was unspoken; they both refused to give up hope. They preferred to concentrate on another truth, that every SCI (Spinal Cord Injury) victim's recovery was different; some people did indeed make nearly full recoveries, and in Jason's case, it was too early to say how far he could progress. And while the medical staff here at Riker's was not exactly top-notch, Elisa had unashamedly pulled every string she could get her hands on to make sure that Jason got expert medical treatment up until the day he'd been sent there. She'd even bribed/threatened the EMT's in the ambulance into driving him to Bellevue Hospital instead of Manhattan Medical immediately after he was shot, because she'd heard from other officers and the EMT's she associated with that Bellevue had the better spinal treatment center, and she knew that treatment in the first and most critical eight hours after spinal cord injury were the most crucial in later recovery. Combining that excellent care at the beginning, with Jason's sheer raw determination… He might end up bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, or he could eventually end up walking with just a cane. No one could say yet, but they could hope…

After a little more small talk about his health, they moved on to the other subject talked about, though guardedly, every time she came. Jason asked, "So, how are 'the guys'?"

"Doing well," Elisa said with a smile. "Especially now that they know they have a few more friends out there. Oh, and I brought you some new reading material." That was her cue to lay a week's worth of the New York Times on his bed. That was how they communicated about the gargoyles; through newspaper articles about robberies that they had stopped or other activities they had engaged in. Elisa folded back the corners of the pertinent pages to make them easier for Jason to find, and if the newspaper didn't credit the gargoyles for their work (which was the way it usually went), she would casually highlight the particular article so Jason would know who was truly responsible. But today, there was a pale orange flyer stuck in amidst the newspapers, one that hadn't been there when they'd been distributed to the general public. Jason noticed it sticking out slightly and pulled it out, and smiled widely when he read the notice for the second meeting of the People for Interspecies Tolerance.

"Bloodied but not Beaten," Jason quoted aloud from the flyer with a satisfied smile on his face. "Nice catchphrase." Last Tuesday when she had visited, Elisa had told him about the first meeting of the P.I.T., which had been broken up (literally) by a cadre of Quarrymen. (And he'd cursed his brother in blistering terms for using such tactics on innocent people. In their thousand years of hunting the Demon, the Hunters' goal had always been to _protect_ humans, not to persecute them! It was obvious to him that his poor brother Jon was sinking deeper and deeper into madness…) It was good to know that the Quarrymen had evidently failed in their goal to defeat the gargoyles' supporters.

The papers were set aside for later perusal, and they spent a little while longer making small talk about relatively innocuous topics, amusing anecdotes from the precinct or the latest happenings with Elisa's family, knowing that a lot had to remain unspoken. Such as the truth about the Gargoyles Task Force, and Elisa's involvement with the clan… And Elisa's love life. Though that would remain unspoken even if they were alone in an utterly private and unmonitored room. Jason knew that as much as he was attracted to Elisa, as much as he both cared for and desired her and could very easily have fallen deeply in love with her, they could never be more than friends so long as 'someone else' came first in her life. He never spoke of that, because as gently as it had been given, the rejection had stung, and he had no desire to reopen that emotional wound; just seeing her every week and having her friendship was bittersweet enough. For her part, Elisa kept silent about it because she had never told Jason the name of that 'someone else', and knew she probably never would. Despite the fact that he had taken a bullet for Goliath, Elisa sincerely doubted that Jason would understand or approve of having a gargoyle for a lover… and soon-to-be husband. And their bittersweet friendship, somehow forged despite the initial lies and betrayals, was still so fragile… No, some things were better left unsaid.

Soon enough it was time for Elisa to go. On her way out she always visited Jason's sister Robyn, also a prisoner at Riker's, to let her know how her brother was doing. And when driving back across the bridge that connected Riker's Island to Queens, Elisa would always let out a sigh of mingled relief, frustration and general weariness. It wasn't easy, being a cop and being friends with an inmate on Riker's; she'd had to do some fancy verbal tap-dancing in front of Captain Chavez, including claiming that Jason had actually taken that bullet for her instead, to keep the Board of Inquiry from sniffing into her visits. And she'd had to do some equally fancy tap-dancing in front of Goliath, when he'd found out about her visits during the daytime; persuading him that Jason was ultimately their best connection to Jon Castaway, even if right now the two brothers weren't communicating. (Her fiancé had a real jealous streak sometimes, particularly about Jason; Elisa sometimes wondered guiltily if he'd somehow found out about that one kiss in her apartment, but had never gotten up the nerve to ask.) She sometimes wondered if the weekly visits were worth all the trouble… and then she remembered that smile. Even if they could never and would never be more than friends, there was something about that smile…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Tuesday night, the clan had just a little problem, a magical mishap:

David and Fox Xanatos came back from their dinner at Tavern on the Green to find the castle in an uproar that was raging louder than the thunderstorm outside. Most of the clan was talking or shouting while surrounding either Hudson or Bronx, except Goliath; he was holding Puck up against a wall a good three feet off the floor and snarling something at him while Puck was frantically babbling something back; and Anne was over in the corner trying to comfort both Alex and Bethany, who seemed to be engaged in a contest to see who could scream the loudest…

David and Fox looked at each other and sighed simultaneously. "You take the gargoyles, I'll take the kids," Fox said bluntly as she headed over to Anne and the children. David was about to retort that she'd given herself the easier job, when a particularly ear-splitting shriek from Bethany made him reconsider. Instead, he headed over to where the gargoyles were clustered.

The cluster resolved into three distinct groupings: Goliath pinning Puck against the wall while he snarled that this mess was entirely _his_ fault, and if he didn't fix it _fast_ Goliath was going to give him a cold iron collar to wear, while Puck was babbling frantically that he'd already explained twice that he _couldn't_ fix it, not by himself… Brooklyn and Broadway pinning a raging Bronx down by brute force, to keep him from jumping at either Puck or Hudson, and begging him to settle down… and Lexington and Angela bracketing a sulking Hudson on either side and pleading for him to reconsider, that this wasn't fair to _Hudson_… David added two and two and two together, came up with the answer as he walked up to Goliath and Puck, and sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let me guess… a botched lesson in soul transference?"

"I-it wasn't botched, exactly," Puck said with a forced grin, as he shoved futilely at the massive hand Goliath was using to keep him pinned against the wall; the geas laid on him by Oberon was evidently preventing him from using his powers to break free. "Bethany and Alex both did the spell perfectly, to simultaneously transfer the spirits of Hudson and Bronx between the two bodies!"

"But he _tricked_ Hudson into being a willing participant!" Goliath growled, showing his fangs. "All Owen said to him when we awoke was that he wanted a volunteer who could glide on his own if need be, for a lesson for both the children. We thought it would be another lesson in levitation, _not _soul transference!"

"Well, if I'd told him everything, he wouldn't have volunteered for it, after the trouble we had with Coldstone and company!" Puck protested. "And the only soul-transfer spells basic enough that the children can learn them involve willing souls! But everything would have been fine, if Bronx hadn't decided he _likes_ having wings, hands and speech!"

"Now he refuses to transfer back, and the real Hudson is royally pissed at both Puck _and_ Bronx's spirit, and the kids got so upset from all the uproar that Bronx and Hudson are making that they started pitching fits too!" Brooklyn reported breathlessly, as he and Broadway fought to hold Bronx-Hudson down, which was no easy task considering how the watchbeast was struggling and snarling. "Dammit, Hudson, this is _not helping_ the situation, and if you rip somebody's throat out we'll _never_ get you put back!"

"Come _on_, Bronx; this really isn't fair to the one who really _belongs_ in this body," Lexington said pleadingly as he looked up into Hudson-Bronx's face.

"This body isn't your real home," Angela said pleadingly from the other side. "Don't you want to go back to the body you were hatched and grew up in?"

"No!" Hudson-Bronx said sulkily. Then he gave a slow grin as he held up a rubber ball in one hand, and tossed it easily up and down as he said, "I _like_ having hands." Then he flared his wings out as he said with a wider grin, "And I _like_ having wings. And I _like_ talking…" He rounded on Lexington as he said scoldingly, "Now I tell you, when you home, you always play with picture-box and tapping-board, and not with me!"

Lexington blushed. "You mean the computer? Look, I tell you what, Bronx; if you go back to your old body, I'll play with you for an hour every night from now on! Is it a deal?"

"No."

David exhaled heavily as he surveyed the chaotic room. They needed to find a way to persuade Bronx to go back to his own body, and they needed it fast, before the rightfully enraged Hudson really did rip somebody's throat out… Then the inspiration hit him, and he left the room to use the telephone, and to do a little hurried manipulation with the castle's security settings. After a few minutes he came back, and hunkered down by Bronx-Hudson, who was still snarling and straining to break free. He grabbed one of the watchbeast's fan-shaped ears and whispered very quietly into it, "Listen, I have an idea that might help, but first you've got to calm down. Just calm down, and when the detectives get here…"

Finally, Bronx-Hudson calmed down, and Brooklyn and Broadway were able to let him go. And after some quick quiet talking between Xanatos and Goliath, the clan leader let Puck go, turned to Hudson-Bronx and said, "Bronx, that body does not belong to you, and it is unjust to stay in it. Until you realize that and volunteer to return to your rightful body… This clan has nothing more to say to you." And with that, he turned his back on him.

The rest of the clan got the idea, and turned their backs on Hudson-Bronx as well. Bronx-Hudson gave him a low growl, then slunk off to lie down in Bronx's usual spot in the living room, on a large flat cushion next to Hudson's easy chair in front of the TV.

Hudson-Bronx looked extremely hurt for a moment, then sniffed and headed for the doors to the roof, saying smugly, "I go glide!" But just as he'd reached the doors, another boom of thunder rumbled through the air.

"You can't go right now!" Xanatos said hurriedly, as he ran over and grabbed Hudson-Bronx's arm. "The storm's right overhead, and with all that thunder and lightning, you'd be in danger if you went for a glide right now. Lightning is very, very dangerous, remember? That's why nobody goes gliding during thunderstorms."

Hudson sighed and nodded reluctantly, then grinned and went into the kitchen, where he proceeded to open the refrigerator door and start pulling out food for himself. One of the many advantages of having hands, Xanatos thought ruefully as he left the gargoyles' quarters and went down to his office. Puck, having changed back into Owen for the moment, followed him down the hall. Once they were definitely out of earshot, Xanatos turned to him and said, "For the moment, go to the main security station and keep the 'thunderstorm' going full force." At Owen's startled look, he explained, "I've activated the fire-extinguishing system's outdoor sprinklers and aimed them to keep them spattering water on the windows, while the security program is turning on the anti-collision strobe lights at random intervals and playing the sounds of a thunderstorm out over the loudspeakers." They were lucky they'd still had that old sound-effects CD left over from last year's aborted Halloween party.

"Ah. Very clever, sir," Owen said approvingly. "That should stall the transported Bronx's first flight for at least a few hours, even if the true storm ends."

"That's the idea. We can't keep it up forever, but with any luck we won't have to. We just have to keep him and the real Hudson in the same room together, until the detectives arrive…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Over an hour later, a familiar red Fairlane pulled up outside the Aerie Building, and Elisa and Matt got out and hurried up to the doors with boxes in hand. "Yeah, it's great that there's no real danger involved, but you have to admit that this is the weirdest _real_ case yet for the 'Gargoyles Task Force'," Matt was saying as they summoned the night watchman to let them inside.

"Well, for the GTF specifically, I suppose so," Elisa admitted as they came inside. "But that's only because the Commissioner created the task force only a couple of months ago. Trust me, this is _not_ the weirdest incident I've had to deal with. Being a gargoyle while Goliath was a human, now _that_ was weird."

Matt eyed her skeptically as they rode up in the elevator. "I still have a hard time believing that. I remember being caught in the Big Sleep, and I remember losing all of one night and most of another when Demona turned everyone into statues, even if I don't specifically remember being stoned. If the whole population of New York suddenly sprouted wings and tails for half the night, including me, why don't I remember that?"

"Because Puck had no restrictions on his spell-casting back then, so he could screw with people's minds as easily as their bodies. Trust me, it happened!"

In a few moments, they arrived in the castle. "Showtime," Elisa muttered just before the elevator doors opened. "From what Xanatos said over the phone, if this doesn't work…"

"Relax," Matt muttered back to her. "Your family may have stuck with cats, but I had a dog as a kid. Trust me, this'll work." And with that, they plastered on big smiles and walked to the gargoyles' quarters, singing merrily together, "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?"

In the hour that it had taken for Matt and Elisa to leave the station, pick up the items Xanatos had arranged for them and get to the castle, the gargoyles had dispersed to various points of the castle; Goliath and Angela to the library, Broadway to the kitchen, and Brooklyn to the movie room. All of them had made it plain to Hudson-Bronx, without actually speaking to him directly, that he was _not_ welcome to accompany them. So when their human friends came into the living room, the only ones there were Hudson-Bronx in the easy chair (practicing his channel-changing), Bronx-Hudson on the cushion (growling softly whenever the channel was changed on him before he could decide whether or not he liked that show), and Lexington at the computer (typing furiously away and doing his best to ignore the other two).

"Hi, guys!" Elisa said cheerfully as she spotted them. "How's it going tonight?"

"Don't ask," Lexington groaned as he glanced up from his keyboard. "Just don't ask… If you're looking for Goliath, he's in the library."

"Thanks, I'll see him later," Elisa said airily. "But right now, here's the one we're looking for tonight: Bronx!" as she pointed at the watchbeast on the cushion. The gargoyle sitting in the easy chair perked his ears and turned towards her with a hopeful expression, but the two humans ignored him as they went down on their knees next to Bronx's usual cushion.

Looking out through Bronx's eyes, Hudson gave Matt and Elisa a desperate, pleading look that said plainly, _Get me out of this_! Matt swiftly winked at him where Bronx, looking through Hudson's eyes, couldn't see it. Then he said aloud as he laid a fond hand on the watchbeast's head, "Guess what this week is, Bronxy Boy! It's National Pet Week!"

"That's right!" Elisa chimed in as she scratched under his chin. "This is the week when humans recognize all their four-footed friends, and treat them special. Yesterday we paid special attention to my cat Cagney, and tonight we're going to pay special attention to you! You'll like that, won't you, Bronx? Of course you will, good old Bronx…"

"I Bronx!" Hudson-Bronx piped up as he got out of his chair, to crouch next to them in anticipation of attention.

Matt looked him right in the eye and said flatly, "No, you're not. You're Hudson." Then he turned back to the watchbeast and said cheerfully as he reached into the insulated box he'd brought with him, "Got a real treat for you tonight, Bronx!" And he pulled out a Filet Mignon fresh from Tavern on the Green, done rare, the delicious aroma filling the air.

Hudson-Bronx whimpered softly as he watched Bronx-Hudson sniff the Filet Mignon with obvious appreciation, then start wolfing it down, while Elisa and Matt scritched behind the watchbeast's fan-shaped ears, rubbed his back ridges and told him he was the biggest, cleverest, bestest watchbeast in the entire world. Then the gargoyle folded his arms as he sat back down in the easy chair with a huff, and did his best to ignore them.

A minute or two later, the lavishing praise turned to delighted laughter, and a few seconds later the watchbeast and humans paraded in front of the easy chair. Elisa had brought a new, king-sized and extra-tough rawhide bone for a chew toy, and now she and Matt were using it to play tug-of-war with Bronx. Elisa held onto one end of the chew toy while Matt grabbed her around the waist to try to anchor her, and both of them were laughing delightedly as the watchbeast, moving backwards and growling playfully, began dragging them around the room.

Hudson-Bronx whimpered again, then jumped up out of the chair and fell to his knees next to Bronx-Hudson. "Not fair! Should be me!" Bronx-Hudson just eyed him and gave him a disdainful snort before he resumed playing with Matt and Elisa, and finally Hudson-Bronx gave in and howled at the ceiling, "Want to go back! Want to be Bronx again!"

Watching the scene with Owen in the security room, Xanatos grinned as he turned to Owen and said, "That's your cue, Puck!" But Owen was already running out the door, and shifting to Puck along the way to the nursery. Less than thirty seconds later he was in the living room with a sleepy and startled Alex under one arm and Bethany under the other, saying brightly, "Wakey-wakey, kids! Time for your next practice!"

By the time the rest of the gargoyles had gotten the word and converged on the living room, Bronx and Hudson were back in their original bodies. Matt started to get up to talk to Hudson once the gargoyle and watchbeast had stopped glowing with eldritch light, but Elisa grabbed his arm and kept him on his knees beside her, as she gestured for Bronx, now whining pitifully, to come over. Together they spent several minutes reassuring him that he'd done the right thing in returning to his own body, and he really was the biggest and cleverest and bestest watchbeast ever, and it just so happened that Xanatos had ordered for them _two_ filet mignons from Tavern on the Green…

All the gargoyles first congratulated Hudson on being back in his own body, then also went to Bronx and added their praise on doing the right thing at last. "And I never really thought before how frustrated you must get sometimes, dear Bronx," Angela crooned as she scratched along his back ridges and behind his ears. "But you know that any of us would be happy to act as your hands and wings; you're an important part of our clan…"

"We really do need to pay more attention to him, and take him on more patrols," Goliath confided to Brooklyn in a quiet corner. "This might have been resolved sooner, if we could have convinced him of his worth as a clan member in his own right, and his own form."

"Yeah, especially now that Hudson probably won't want to have anything to do with him," Brooklyn agreed in a low voice as he looked over at Hudson, who was on the far side of the room from the gathering around Bronx and glaring daggers at the watchbeast.

Goliath sighed. "I'll speak to him later, as well. Hopefully he'll learn to forgive what happened tonight… in time."

Meanwhile, Anne was having a quiet but intense conversation with Puck-turned-Owen in the corner, and when she was finished, Owen sighed and went over to Hudson to say loudly, "I apologize for whatever inconvenience this lesson may have caused you--"

"_Inconvenience_!" The snarl in Hudson's voice made even Goliath take a step back, halfway across the room.

"--And I promise to never ask for your help in a magic lesson again without full disclosure first," Owen finished rapidly as he retreated.

"Ye'll never get me willing help in a magic lesson again, _period_!" Hudson thundered. "An' if ye ever try to trick me into it again, I'll rip yer ears off and stuff 'em down yer throat! Blasted Fey and yer blasted tricks… Next thing ye know, we'll have a second moon in the sky again!" he snarled as he stomped out of the room.

Brooklyn let his breath out in a silent whistle as he, like everyone else, stared at the doorway the gargoyle elder had just stomped through. "I haven't seen him that mad in over a thousand years…"

Like everyone else, Xanatos had been staring after Hudson's wildly lashing tail, but then the exact words the gargoyle elder had used ran through his mind again, and he turned to Goliath with a look of _Did I hear that right_? "Did he just say… a second moon in the sky… again!"

Goliath groaned and covered his eyes with his hand. "Don't ask. Not tonight… Please, Xanatos, just… don't ask."

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

On Wednesday morning, someone else came calling on the Canmores.

In the Women's House of Detention at Riker's Island Correctional Facility, Robyn Canmore was grimly folding sheets in the prison laundry facility, and telling herself over and over that it really would be a very bad idea to stop doing her appointed task and take thirty seconds to kill the prison guard smirking at her over in the corner. Even if it would really take less than eight seconds…

Despite the stereotypes depicted in hundreds of B movies, most of the prison guards ("corrections officers", for the PC-paranoid) at Riker's were decent people. They were a mix of both men and women, though more women guarded the female inmates on Riker's just as more men guarded the males. And some of them could almost be called friendly; treating inmates like real people and not stereotypes, talking to them cordially at times instead of just barking orders. Most of them were, if not friendly then at least professional towards the inmates they watched over, though they always kept their guard up, watching for signs of violence or duplicity. That was understandable, considering that in dealing with some of the hardcore prisoners housed here, people who would literally kill for a pack of cigarettes (as had happened, in the not-so-distant past), one careless mistake or unforeseen circumstance could cost them their lives. But it seemed there were always a few bad apples in every barrel, and McCoy over there was definitely one of them. He was prone to harassing inmates who weren't causing trouble, just doing the jobs assigned to them, and was quick to use violence on those who showed even a hint of defiance. He also not-so-subtly hinted that he could make life a little easier for some of the ladies in this jail... for a price. Robyn had already been warned by another inmate that the price McCoy demanded in return for 'favorable treatment' was too high for anyone who wasn't seriously into S&M. "If you really need somethin', better off to go to Hansen, he's the blonde one watches the bakery. 'Least he's satisfied wit' just a blow job, an' he gets you extra phone time too…"

But harassment by one of the guards was only one of her current problems; she also had troubles with a few of her fellow inmates. Most of them were, again, more-or-less easy to get along with; the fact that she had come in here for blowing up a police station, even if nobody had actually been killed, had gained her an instant increase in status high over the majority of the women here. The majority of them were in for selling or possessing drugs, and most of the rest were in for theft or assault in various degrees. But there were hardcores here, as well, and one, of them, a woman named Cheryl Tauser who was in for the cold-blooded murder of her ex-boyfriend and his fiancée, saw Robyn as a threat to her own status as Top Bitch (as Robyn thought of her) of the jail. Cheryl had made it abundantly clear that she expected Robyn to kowtow to her in all things, to the point of being Cheryl's 'plaything'. When Robyn refused to comply, but just tried to ignore her instead of challenging her in return, Cheryl and her 'lieutenants' had launched a full-fledged harassment campaign designed to humiliate her and either break her will, or enrage her enough to get into a serious fight. And whether Cheryl won that fight (as she probably thought she would, having led a street gang of women prior to her arrest) or Robyn won it (as Robyn _knew_ she would, having been trained in hand-to-hand combat and both conventional and improvisational weapons use since childhood), they would both end up being sent to 'the Bing', the complex on Riker's that housed the most violent inmates.

Though she had hidden it well from her brothers while growing up, Robyn was mildly claustrophobic, and she was having a hard enough time dealing with her confinement to a relatively spacious cell, as big as her bedroom while growing up even if it had a _lot_ less amenities. As a regular prisoner, she at least had visits to the common rooms to watch TV or play cards with the other women, or the prison library to find books to read, and even her work in the prison laundry. She utterly dreaded the prospect of solitary confinement, being confined to a 6'-by-8' room for 23 hours out of the day, with nothing but her own thoughts to keep her company. More than a few weeks of that, she knew, and tough-as-nails Robyn Canmore, born and bred to be a Hunter, could end up broken inside. And she couldn't allow herself to break; she had to be strong, to survive this and somehow reunite with what was left of her family…

If not for her brother Jason being on Riker's as well, in the infirmary prison, she would have escaped long since. Riker's liked to boast that the island was inescapable, but Robyn had already devised two different escape routes, one with a fifty-fifty chance of escape and another that was virtually a sure thing for someone as calculating and as athletic as herself. But as long as Jason was here, partially paralyzed and lying helpless in a hospital bed, she would not leave him; not until she could devise a way to break _both_ of them out.

From talks with the more cooperative guards, Robyn knew that after their trials were over, they would be sent to different prisons; she would most likely go to Bedford Hills, where lay New York's only maximum-security prison for women, while Jason's disabled status would not prevent him from being shipped to one of the eight maximum-security prisons for men in New York state. But the legal system was so bogged down that the Canmore siblings would likely have to wait at Riker's more than a year for their trials; some prisoners she'd spoken to after arriving here had been waiting more than eighteen months. That would be time enough for Jason to recover as much as he could from the wound received at the hands of their little brother (oh, _Jon_! Why, Jon, _why_?) When Detective Maza had visited her yesterday, as she always did after seeing Jason, she'd told Robyn the good news about Jason's rehabilitation. Robyn knew better than to dare hope that Jason would fully recover in time; their father had raised his children to be realists, not optimists. But every inch of ground regained, and every measure of strength Jason built into his upper body through his physical therapy, would probably be needed for when Robyn found a way to escape with him. And there was a way, there _had_ to be a way…

She was brought out of her grim reverie by the arrival of another corrections officer; Gantry, one of the good ones, not friendly but smoothly professional. Under other circumstances, Robyn would have enjoyed having her as a sister-in-arms. McCoy hurriedly lost his smirk and lounging attitude when she walked in, straightening up and trying to act professional as well (a lost cause, in Robyn's opinion; he'd never appear to be more than what he was, a lowborn thug.) Gantry's face was sporting a mild frown as she came up to Robyn, but she merely said, "You have a visitor."

Robyn was startled. A visitor, on a Wednesday morning? Detective Maza had made her weekly visit yesterday, and wasn't due back for another week. She'd seen her lawyer last Thursday, a court-appointed public defender, and he'd made it fairly clear that he was a busy man with a heavy case load and she shouldn't expect to see him more than once a month until her trial drew near. And she'd never been visited by anyone else; Jason was unable to come see her, and Jon… could it be her little brother Jon, coming to visit her at long last in his new alias of Jon Castaway? Detective Maza had told her what Xanatos' spies had discovered about the leader of the Quarrymen, but since the evidence had been obtained illegally, the detective couldn't use it in any fashion. Jon Canmore would have been arrested for his part in the clocktower bombing the moment he'd shown his credentials, but Jon Castaway would raise no eyebrows at all. After he'd left the clocktower to pursue the Demon instead of helping her stop Jason's bleeding and move him to safety, after he'd abandoned them to the arms of the police, Robyn had concluded that Jon had dismissed them as unworthy to carry on the tradition of the Hunter, and therefore unworthy to even be considered family. But perhaps he had changed his mind…

She asked Gantry who her visitor was, but the name Gantry gave her as she led her to the visiting room was unfamiliar to her. As was the face, when she saw him at last; Robyn was very, very good at remembering faces, which is how she'd been able to identify Dominique Destine as Demona transformed during the day. But this oriental-featured man was utterly unfamiliar to her; she'd never seen him before, in all her globe-spanning travels with and without her brothers as they hunted the Demon. What did he want with her?

The man introduced himself to her, in an accented voice that suggested English was his second language (though he had learned it very well), and asked her most solicitously how she was doing. How did the foreign prat think she was doing! She was in jail, awaiting a trial and a probable sentencing of at least ten years more of imprisonment, probably twenty-to-life! But she just gave a thoroughly noncommittal reply. Then the man gave a knowing smile that had an edge of cruelty to it as he said, "From the accounts I've read, I understand you and your brothers once had a business of hunting down gargoyles…"

Inwardly, Robyn granted herself ten points; she'd privately bet herself that the word would pop up within the first two minutes of the conversation, and there it was, at one minute and fifty-eight seconds. But outwardly she kept her face expressionless, and said only, "We did."

The smile grew, becoming both satisfied and anticipatory, and just a shade crueler. "Then, Miss Canmore, I have a business proposition for you…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Wednesday evening, a chamber in the Labyrinth was lit with many small glowing candles, and voices both human and inhuman were raised together in song:

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! Happy Birthday, dear Maggie, happy birthday to you!"

Maggie ducked her head and her facial fur bristled in embarrassment, but she still gave a feline smile to them all before taking a deep breath, and blowing out all the candles on her birthday cake. Or almost all of them; one wavered but didn't go out entirely… but then flickered and went out when a sudden swift breeze wafted past. (And of course, no one commented on why Maggie's husband had chosen just then to flex his right wing; he probably just had a muscle cramp or something.)

The cake was huge, two layers thick and easily two feet wide by three feet long, the size normally served for large banquets; it had taken the Labyrinth kitchen's main cook and helpers a while to figure out how to get one layer on top of the other without it falling apart on them, and it had taken eight full cans of icing to fill and frost. Broadway had wanted to bake and decorate the cake himself, but had been persuaded to let the Labyrinth residents do it rather than work out how to safely glide such a huge decorated cake across town. Instead, he, Hudson and Brooklyn had carried down several gallons of ice cream between them, the clan's biggest contribution to the party itself. It was very well appreciated, too; whether human, mutate or gargoyle, everybody loved ice cream. Once the candles were out, the giant cake was cut (it proved to have one layer of chocolate, and another of vanilla), and slices were served with ice cream; people were given a choice of German Chocolate, French Vanilla, Strawberry Cheesecake or Pecan Praline flavors. (Brooklyn eyed Broadway's plate with near-disbelief; Broadway had chosen one scoop of Pecan Praline to go with his slice, and was eating it very, very slowly with a wistful expression, trying to make it last. And here he'd have bet his next two patrols that his rookery brother would have taken at least one scoop of each flavor…)

After the cake and ice cream came the presents. After buying the art pencils, pens and charcoals for Derek to give to his wife, Elisa had decided her present would be a set of sketchbooks. The clones (with a little help from Derek, of course) made her a present of the art books that had been found in the old library last Monday night. Dana and Claw together presented her with a short stack of used-but-in-excellent-condition romance novels, knowing Maggie's secret addiction to them. Other Labyrinth residents presented her with homemade items or stuff found on foraging expeditions, not always expertly made or perfectly wrapped but given with honest affection.

Though the concept of birthday parties was relatively new to most of them, the clan had brought presents as well. Angela presented her with a small pillow embroidered with a night scene of dainty unicorns frolicking in a meadow (a scene from her memory, of a valley on Avalon). Brooklyn presented her with a pair of potted plants, while Lexington gave her a small sun lamp that would enable the plants to grow and thrive underground. Broadway presented her with a voucher good for a gourmet dinner for two, to be cooked and served by Broadway himself at any time she and Derek wanted; all they'd have to do is call the night before. Goliath, who had learned calligraphic writing at the feet of the same Benedictine monk who had taught him to read English and Latin, gave her a scroll made for hanging on the wall, with the bible verse that had been used in Maggie's wedding (I Corinthians 13:1-13: "Love is patient and kind…") beautifully rendered in ink. Anne Marsden and her daughter Bethany presented Maggie with a lovely silver necklace, bought with Anne's first paycheck as the Xanatos family's nanny, and Hudson, who enjoyed whittling, presented her with a small hand-carved jewelry box for putting the necklace in.

Though they hadn't been invited to the party, the Xanatos family sent with the gargoyles a pair of beautiful Waterford crystal goblets, and a bottle of top-quality but non-alcoholic champagne for christening them with. Matt Bluestone, who had been a little surprised to find himself invited to the party (at Maggie's insistence, once she knew Anne was coming), had hurriedly consulted with Elisa before presenting Maggie with a pair of artist's how-to books on drawing the human figure, and on drawing various birds and animals, both authored by a famous graphic artist.

From Arizona, Beth had mailed a hand-made Dream Catcher, decorated with feathers and made for hanging on the wall. Diane and Peter Maza presented their daughter-in-law with a pair of lovely backless dresses, made from the measurements they'd taken when making her wedding dress. "Oh, they're lovely… but I don't think I'll be able to fit into them anymore," Maggie said ruefully as she held up the first dress, a lovely and svelte green number, up against her current figure, with her belly swollen from pregnancy.

"Well, not that one," Diane admitted. "Think of that one as an incentive to lose weight after the baby's born. But this one," as she drew the other dress out of the box, a gorgeous sapphire-blue gown, "has an empire-waistline and is pleated just enough that it should fit well for another three months at least. Go ahead, dear, try it on!"

Maggie blushingly retreated to the bedroom to change into her new outfit. While she was gone, Derek murmured to Elisa and his parents, "Anything at all from her folks?" The Reeds had been given the addresses of those Maza family members who still lived aboveground, before going back to Ohio last month.

Elisa and their father just shook their heads. His mother said softly and sadly, "Nothing at all, not even a card in the mail. I just don't understand how two supposedly loving parents wouldn't want to keep in touch with their daughter, changed or not…"

Derek set his ears back as he softly growled, "If they can't accept her as she is, who needs 'em?"

Elisa put a placating hand on his shoulder as she said, "We understand, bro'. We'll always be here, for both of you."

When Maggie emerged from the bedroom in her new dress, Derek's ears perked up again, and he proved that felinoid mutates could also wolf-whistle. "Honey, you look fantastic!" And she did; Diane's supreme skill at sewing was proven again as the dress hung on Maggie perfectly, draping most gracefully over her pregnancy in a way that neither emphasized it nor attempted to hide it, but made it perfectly beautiful. (Over in a corner, Lex glanced at Brooklyn, then elbowed him sharply in the gut to get him to shut his gaping beak.)

After the party was over, Father Sullivan arrived with his apologies for being late, as he'd been leading a bible study group, and another gift for Maggie. And now that the entire wedding party was there, it was time to head over to the chapel for the dress rehearsal. Hudson grumbled a bit about the bother with rehearsing what was supposed to be a simple ceremony; he'd already memorized his lines and he was sure the good father knew his, and Goliath's and Elisa's were simple enough. But Diane had insisted on having a dress rehearsal, and by now Hudson had learned not to argue with this particular lady…

The dress rehearsal went smoothly, but before everyone could disperse, Diane declared that it was time the wedding party had their dress fittings as well. "Mom, Matt and I have to go to work!" Elisa protested, while Goliath tried to inconspicuously sidle out of the room.

"Then you two can go; I assume Matt has the sense to have his tuxedo fitted before Saturday, and I'll see you at the house for your fitting tomorrow afternoon. But where do you think _you're_ going, mister?" as she caught Goliath before he could escape. "Come with me; I brought your suit down with me earlier…"

Goliath had time for only one pleading look over his shoulder as he let his mother-in-law-to-be drag him out of the room, but the rest of the clan only gave him sympathetic smiles, and barely-held-in snickers. Elisa and Matt escaped to the surface, but having been previously directed to stay put for her fitting later, Angela settled onto a bench to wait, and the Trio elected to wait with her; they were hoping to get an advance look at Goliath in his new finery. Hudson, however, went with Father Sullivan to visit the clones again. Bronx whined as he looked longingly in the direction Hudson and the priest had gone, but didn't go with them; Hudson was still so angry at him that he'd even refused to carry Bronx on the journey to the Labyrinth. While they were all waiting there in the chapel, Broadway noticed the pensive look on Angela's face and asked her, "What's on your mind, Angela? You've had that look since last night, after the soul-switching was fixed."

"It's something Hudson said afterwards," Angela said slowly. "About having two moons in the sky… I tried to ask him about that later, after he cooled down, but he just didn't want to talk about it. Neither did Father; all he would tell me is that the clan had a breeding season right after it, and laid the clutch that became me and my rookery brothers and sisters. Back on Avalon Princess Katherine had told us a little about it, but not much; all she really knew is that she woke up one night to find the whole castle in an uproar, and her nurse had barred both the door and the window shutters in her bedroom, and stood guard over her bed with a cross in one hand and a dagger in the other for the rest of the night. Guardian Tom said he'd been only a baby when it happened, too young to remember it, and the Magus said he had no memory of it either…"

The Trio all looked at each other uneasily. "It's not really something we like to talk about, Angela," Broadway said finally, "just like we don't like to talk about… the massacre. We lost some clan members on the Night of Two Moons… and the breeding season right afterwards, that nearly cost us even more members, because we weren't ready for it. I mean, it was great that it happened, because otherwise you and your rookery brothers and sisters wouldn't exist. But boy, it was all a mess…"

"That's putting it mildly," Brooklyn said emphatically. He looked at Lexington and said, "You were on the battlements when it started, Lex, and you're the best of us three at storytelling; you start. If you miss anything, we'll fill in the gaps."

"If you guys know more about what really happened than I do, I'll be _delighted_ to hear it," Lexington sighed. "That night's bothered me ever since it happened. Angela, all we really know is that one September night in… 987, that was the year, though I don't remember the exact date; a night or two before the Fall Equinox… Close to midnight, all of a sudden the world went crazy for an hour or so. First this… _ripple_ of magic went across the whole countryside, sweeping from north to south; we couldn't quite see it, but when it passed over the castle I got a tingle in my spine clear from my scalp to my tail-tip. Then a _second moon_ appeared in the sky next to the original; a smaller one, about half the normal size. And the whole land… _shuddered_ underfoot, for at least ten seconds… Looking back, I think we had an earthquake, but you just _don't get_ _earthquakes_ in Scotland. This one didn't do any real damage, the castle didn't fall over or anything, but everyone was so freaked out about it that everyone in the clan took to the air, while all the humans in the castle packed into the chapel and started praying as hard as they could. And the woods to the north of the castle went utterly crazy; we saw dozens of lights in different colors flickering like fireflies, and heard what the elders said sounded like dozens of wolves howling, but there hadn't been any wolves in those woods since before I was hatched!

"There had been a hunting party in the woods when it happened; six gargoyles and nearly a dozen watchbeasts, taking their turn to hunt down enough food to feed the clan for the upcoming Equinox feast. Goliath sent a dozen more warriors into the woods when we heard the howling, to scout out what was going on in there and report back immediately, then _tripled_ the guard everywhere around the castle while he, Hudson and Prince Malcolm went to talk to the Magus and see if he knew what had happened to the world. They found the Magus passed out in his chambers; I think Goliath said it looked like he had fainted from something, or just lost his footing from the earthquake, and hit his head on the edge of the table as he went down. He didn't wake up for the rest of the night, and we were told later that when he did awaken, he didn't remember anything, not even falling down.

"About an hour after it appeared, the second moon just vanished out of the sky as if it had never been there to begin with; the land shivered again, but not as bad as before, and it was over within just a second or two; and all the lights in the woods and howling stopped dead. Then the scouting party returned, and nearly all of them looked…drained, like somebody had sucked most of the life out of them. They said they hadn't gone more than five wingspans into the woods when they'd seen this tall, pale woman dressed in a black gown step out from behind a tree, and smile at them… And the next thing they knew, they were all waking up on the ground, weak as kittens, and we were back to just the usual moon in the sky. The scouts were too weak to glide, even; they had to walk back to the castle. And the hunting party that had been in the woods when the whole nightmare had started never did return; we went looking for them later, but never found a trace of them, not even piles of gravel. About two weeks after that, Prince Malcolm was killed, and that sort of shoved the other incident out of everyone's minds for a little while."

Brooklyn snorted and interjected bitterly, "Of course, the humans had an easier time of doing that than we did, since to their way of thinking the night had cost the castle _only_ six gargoyles and eleven watchbeasts."

Lexington nodded sadly. "Including nearly every female watchbeast in the clan, since the females all liked to hunt together; all we had left for females were two elderly ones who were long past breeding age, one that had hatched in our rookery generation but had stayed in the rookery with the males while the other females went hunting, and Bronx's three rookery sisters that had hatched with him nearly five years before. I know Goliath and the elders were worried about having so few females with so many males, worried about the males really fighting over the females and doing serious damage to each other when it came time to breed again. I think Goliath was preparing to send out a party to try to find our sister clan, the ones that had split off from us two centuries before; not just to see if they had been affected by the Night of Two Moons as well, but to see if they had any extra female watchbeasts that could come back to Wyvern to live and breed. But Prince Malcolm's death threw everyone into turmoil, and then, just as things were starting to settle down a little, somebody noticed that the night before the full moon, the last remaining breeding-age female was--ahem--getting lively in the courtyard with her mate." Lexington blushed a little. "Now, Hudson told you that watchbeasts only mate for egg-breeding, not just for fun, right? But we'd had a breeding season only fifteen years before, and it normally would have been another ten years before the next one. Some of the elders were thinking that perhaps that one female was trying to force a breeding season for herself, to repopulate her kind, but two warriors insisted that this meant we were about to have another Breeding Moon, out of cycle or not; the watchbeasts always start in a night or two before everyone else does.

"Just on the off chance that the warriors were right, Goliath ordered all the adult mated pairs to perch at dawn separate from the unmated ones, the elders and those too young to breed, just like they would for a regular breeding season… and the next sunset, sure enough, every breeding-age female in the clan felt the urges and rose to breed. Even some elderly females who had thought they were too old to breed anymore! And even the three females in our generation who'd already chosen mates, though we weren't even thirty years old then! And boy, did _that_ cause a ruckus on the first night; Goliath had thought they would be too young to rise even if his siblings were right and we did have a breeding season, and so he hadn't bothered to assign separate perches for them." Lexington shook his head. "Two of our brothers just about tore each other to bits, because our gray-skinned brother with the spines running down his back had been perched right next to a mated pair when they woke up, and he got excited and tried to chase after our white-skinned rookery sister, instead of leaving her to our yellow-skinned and club-tailed brother, her mate."

Angela nodded uneasily. "Hudson told me breeding battles can be really vicious; that's why breeding pairs always have to perch far enough away that others aren't affected by the females' scent."

"As one of those who had to help patch my brothers up afterwards, I can tell you that whatever he told you wasn't bad enough," Lex said bluntly. "Our gray-skinned brother nearly died from shock and loss of blood before sunrise, and he never regrew that chunk of wing that our other brother had ripped out, in his fury at being challenged for his mate; he was crippled for the rest of his life, never able to fly as well as he had before. Of course, both mates were horrified at what had happened once they'd done their breeding that night and come back to their senses, but by then it was too late. Goliath really should have taken those two rookery siblings of his more seriously…" Then Lexington paused, and got a funny look on his face.

"What is it?" Angela asked, curious about that odd expression.

"I just realized something… The two warriors that had been so sure that we were about to have a breeding season, were two of the scouting party that had gone into the woods on the Night of Two Moons. And they were the only two that didn't come back looking drained and weak as kittens…"

"Hey, you're right!" Brooklyn said as he rubbed his beak in thought. "They said they'd become unconscious like the rest, but I wonder if they'd lied about that? If they saw or did something in those woods that night, that let them know ahead of time that we were about to have that breeding season out of cycle…"

Angela pondered that as well, then shrugged. "I guess we'll never know for sure."

Lexington scratched his scalp. "Actually, we might, if Coldstone and Coldfire ever come back to town. Because they were the two warriors we're talking about… But anyway, that's why your clutch had so many gargoyle eggs, more than we'd ever had in a single clutch before, but only one watchbeast egg in it. And that's really all I or anyone else can tell you about the Night of Two Moons, and the breeding season afterwards."

"Although I'm surprised that the Princess and Magus didn't give you all an earful about that breeding season, and the egg-carrying months afterwards," Brooklyn said sarcastically. "The Dragon knows they complained about it loudly enough at the time…"

Angela's eyes sparked angrily; while the Trio only remembered two of her three guardians as humans that were _not_ friendly towards gargoyles, to Angela they had always been the dearest of substitute parents, and she didn't tolerate _any_ unkind words about them. But before she could say anything, Diane reappeared and beckoned to her. "Your father's had his fitting, dear; now it's your turn. Oh, and I'm glad you stayed, Brooklyn. I've got an idea for your clothing that I'd like to try out…"

"Oh, hey, I dunno about that; traditional gargoyle attire for me, remember?" Brooklyn stammered, as he backed towards the door. But Broadway reached out a long arm and snagged him before he could escape, while Diane said that she was sure her idea would meet with approval, and he would stay put and wait for her if he knew what was good for him…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

On Thursday night, between the birthday party and the wedding, the clan had a funeral.

Everyone gathered in the arboretum below the castle, shortly after sunset. The gargoyle clan, the Xanatos family, Elisa, Matt, Maggie, Derek and a few other Labyrinth residents stood in a reverent and solemn semicircle around the white marble marker that had been set up in one corner of the arboretum, under a weeping willow tree. The face of the marker said simply:

IN LOVING MEMORY OF

PHILLIP K. MARSDEN

Nov. 15th, 1969- May 12th, 1995

LOVING HUSBAND

DEVOTED FATHER

All those assembled wore black, either black suits and dresses or black armbands for those with wings. They stood respectfully behind the chief mourner, Anne Marsden, as she held her daughter Bethany in her arms, and they listened to Father Sullivan intone, "…surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen."

"Amen," Anne echoed softly, as did many of those arrayed behind her.

Father Sullivan then closed the Bible and addressed them all, his face solemn behind his eye patch (plain black, for the mournful occasion.) "Of all of us assembled, only Anne Marsden can say she truly had the privilege of knowing Phillip Kyle Marsden. But from what she has told me of him, he was a good and decent man. He emerged from the cold iron grip of a strict and unloving household with a spirit bright and strong, undimmed by the trials of his youth that would have scarred many a lesser man. He was rich not in gold but in spirit and in love, which are precious beyond all earthly measure. He was a kind and caring husband, a joyously devoted father, a friend to many and a generous soul, who would not hesitate to help out a stranger in need. I would have been privileged to have met him, and regret that time must wait until the day we are all gathered together before our Lord in Heaven. Until then, Phillip," as he turned to address the marker, "We honor your memory, in this manner and in caring for those you left behind." He turned to face the assembly again, and said quietly, "If any of you would care to say a few words…?"

Anne swallowed, then took a pace forward, closer to the marker, and spoke with a voice thick with tears. "Phil… We never got around to discussing graves and such. (sniff) You had a hard enough time just filling out the life insurance forms… not that the policy did us much good in the end. But even if we had, I'll bet you never would have imagined your marker to be where it is now, or what kind of people have come for the funeral. You were right, Phil, the world's a strange and wonderful place, even right here in New York. (sniff) Strange, in that I'm standing here in front of people with wings, and tails, and strange powers… and wonderful, in that we're all a sort of family. That Bible-thumping-bastard uncle of yours… er… (_as she glanced uneasily at Father Sullivan, but he pretended not to have heard her_) Well, he might have called them demons and monsters, but they're really people, good people, and Bethany and I are going to be okay now. (sniff) You'd be so amazed and so proud of Bethany…" Their daughter was definitely taking after Phil's side of the family now, even if Phil hadn't known of his Fey heritage while he lived. Puck was helping her learn to control her True Sight, or at least learn to distinguish between it and mundane 'eyeballs-only' sight, in addition to her lessons in spirit transfers and levitation. Anne thought to herself that later that night when their guests were gone, she'd come back to the marker and tell Phil about how Bethany had made that Piglet toy he'd given her dance around the nursery that afternoon, with Alex's 'gargy bear'… She swallowed down the lump in her throat and spoke again. "Phil, I promise I'll always tell Bethany about you, and how wonderful you were to me and to her, and… and I'll always love you, Phil. Always…"

After she had fallen silent for more than a few seconds, Goliath hesitantly stepped forward. "If I may speak…?" as he glanced questioningly at Anne. Anne silently nodded, and Goliath took one step further, to come down on one knee facing the marker. "Phillip Marsden, wherever your spirit resides, know that my clan has vowed to protect and care for Anne and Bethany as two of our own. We will protect them unto our last breaths, be true companions on their journey through life, and honor your memory with them always. Clear skies, Phillip Marsden, and safely rest; your clan will continue," as he bowed his head in respect before returning to his feet. Anne whispered her thanks to him as he returned to the circle.

Soon afterwards, Father Sullivan brought an end to the memorial service. Anne gently took the two white roses Bethany had been silently holding all through the service, and laid them in front of the marker before turning away. As the crowd dispersed, Maggie whispered to Elisa, "This was a good idea, holding a funeral for her husband. Even if the city still won't admit he's dead, at least she has a sense of closure now."

"Yeah, it was a good idea. But it wasn't my idea," Elisa admitted.

"Oh. Well, you've done good, then," Derek said to Goliath.

Goliath's lips quirked wryly as he shook his head. "If you're referring to the words I just spoke, thank you. But though gargoyles also have remembrance ceremonies, this was not my idea either."

Derek blinked, then looked at the retreating backs of David and Fox Xanatos with a somewhat rueful expression. "So they came up with this? It still sort of sticks in my craw to thank Xanatos for anything, but…"

"You don't have to, bro'. You can thank Owen," as Elisa discreetly jerked her thumb at where Owen was standing, seemingly contemplating the way the rising moon was shimmering on the waters of the arboretum's Olympic-sized pool. "He suggested this a few days ago, I guess it was on Phillip's birthday, when Anne was feeling particularly blue. Y'know, he's taken a real interest in Anne and Bethany..."

Derek frowned at that. "So he had a good idea… but he's a little old for Anne, don't you think? And way too much of a cold fish for her."

"Age is not a deterrent to true love," Goliath said with a cocked brow ridge at Derek. "But regardless, I do not think Owen's interest in them is of the romantic sort. He seems to me to have more a rookery keeper's attitude towards them both, though more towards Bethany than Anne."

"He means Owen feels paternal towards them," Elisa translated. She thought to herself that maybe 'avuncular' was the right word; he already had Bethany calling him 'Unca Puck' when he was in his true form and giving the children their magic lessons. She glanced at her watch. "We've still got nearly an hour before Matt and I have to go to work; did you want to come upstairs for coffee?"

Maggie said with a smile and a shake of her head, "That would be nice, but we should pay our respects to Anne and Bethany, and get ourselves and the others back to the Labyrinth. We're taking 'the kids' to pick up some more books tonight, and you know how kids are when they're all excited; if we stay here too long, they'll be running riot by the time we get back. See you there in two more nights…"

"In two more nights," Goliath said to them, but his eyes were on Elisa as he said it. She returned his gaze with a slight blush and a smile of anticipation, and the two of them became so lost in each other's eyes that they didn't even notice when the two mutates walked away to talk to Anne and Bethany, and pass on the greetings and sympathy from the Labyrinth dwellers who hadn't attended.

In fact, nobody noticed that Owen stayed behind after all the others had left, and no one saw when he silently placed a single white lily on the memorial, next to the roses, before returning to his duties in the castle.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Immediately after the funeral, while Goliath and Elisa were otherwise occupied, the Trio held a whispered conversation with Xanatos and Matt Bluestone about Friday night's plans. After being assured that everything was set, they took off together from the castle; they had another appointment to keep.

The P.I.T. was holding their third meeting, and this time it was Lex's turn to be their guest speaker, while Brooklyn and Broadway kept watch outside for Quarrymen. "A little nervous, huh?" Brooklyn said shrewdly to Lex, eyeing his rookery brother's twitching tail, as they landed on the roof of the meeting hall together.

"Yeah, a little," Lex admitted. "I've never spoken in front of a lot of people before…"

"It might help if you think of them as a strange clan of wingless gargoyles; just picture them all as wearing loincloths or something. Good luck, and don't forget to ask MacBeth afterwards if he can make it to the bachelor party after all!" he whispered as they pried the skylight open, so Lex could drop down inside.

Lex hopped down into the meeting hall from the skylight opening, with cheerful words of greeting for the dozens of people sitting in their seats, and was a little nonplussed to find that the very first question he was asked after landing was, why hadn't he roared and made his eyes glow like Brooklyn had last time? "Uh, well, Professor MacDuff didn't ask me to do it. But I can if you really want me to…"

"That won't be necessary this time," 'Professor MacDuff' said hastily, as he stepped up to shake hands with Lex. "And it's a pleasure to see you again, Lexington."

"Nice to see you again, too," Lexington said wryly. He didn't say, but he knew MacBeth knew he was thinking, _that is, as long as you're not shooting at me tonight_…

After they shook hands, Lexington turned back to the crowd of students, once more running through his mind all the 'little white lies' he had to keep straight, the ones Brooklyn had concocted last time to protect the not-so-innocent. He was pretty sure they were (a) Demona had been in stone sleep with them for a thousand years, instead of becoming immortal as well as insane, (b) there was absolutely no connection between her and 'Professor MacDuff', (c) Xanatos had never really wanted to hurt or capture the clan, he just made _really_ bad first impressions, and (d) he didn't know of any Fay or half-Fay, and certainly had no clue about what caused the Great Sleep last summer. And he sure hoped there weren't any more lies to keep track of; Lex knew he wasn't all that good at lying. (His rookery keepers had always been able to tell when he was fibbing; he'd never been able to look them in the eyes when he did, and his tail just wouldn't hold still…) But before he could say anything, one of the people in the fifth row shot to his feet and yelped, "Y-you're real! That was no costume; you're real! Oh, _dude_!"

Lex glanced at the professor and scratched his scalp, a little unsure of what to say. He'd thought that these people would have figured that out when Brooklyn had appeared in front of them last week… Then he remembered Brooklyn's encounter with the girl named Jeanine, and grinned as he asked, "Let me guess: you saw me at the Halloween party?"

"Dude, you sat at our table! I was the Vulcan High Priest of Kohlinahr! Dude, wait till I tell Richie; he was in the Starfleet Commander outfit!" Then the ex-Vulcan pointed proudly to Lexington as he told the room at large, "This gargoyle's a cyber-geek!"

That led to a barrage of questions, and predictably one of the first of them was about how a gargoyle who was originally from the tenth century could become so well-versed in computers and the Internet. Lexington told them he'd always been curious about how things worked, fascinated with devices of all kinds; if truth be told, he was far more at home in this century than the one he'd been hatched in. Back then, his interest in devices over the usual warrior training had made him something of an outcast; "It would have been even worse if it hadn't been for my two favorite rookery brothers sticking up for me all the time, as well as helping me in my warrior training. And the fact that our leader Goliath really enjoys reading too helped some; if some of the other elders who didn't know how to read and didn't care to learn had had their way, I might never have become a warrior at all," Lexington admitted wryly. But in this century, his quick intelligence and skills with machinery and computer programming had saved his clan from disaster more than once. If only, he very privately and wistfully thought to himself, this century had more female gargoyles…

After about half an hour of answering the questions he could answer, and dodging the few questions he couldn't or dared not answer (with the help of 'Professor MacDuff', who had to step in more than once to artfully redirect the conversation away from certain sensitive subjects), they took a break to dive into the munchies the professor had provided. The student who had recognized Lexington from the Halloween party took the opportunity to sidle up to him, introducing himself as Mike Keating and shyly holding out a piece of paper with some writing on it. "Uh, since you enjoy surfing the Net too, here are some chat rooms I like to hang out with from time to time. And that's the name I use most often online…"

Lexington looked at the paper, then did a double-take at what was written on it and nearly choked on his Sprite. After a moment, he grinned up at the student and said, "_Bugjuice_! So you're back online again? Last I'd heard, you'd borrowed Riffraff's terminal long enough to let everyone know you were down hard from a nasty virus." And when the student just gaped at him goggle-eyed, he made a short bow as he said, " 'Braveheart', at your service."

"_Dude_!"

After explaining that 'Riffraff' was actually Mike's buddy Richie, and that Mike had just gotten his hard drive fixed and software reloaded yesterday, the two hackers spent a few moments marveling at coincidence as well as catching Mike up on the latest word from their other friends online. Mike asked, "Hey, is LadyHawke back online yet? I thought she was going to be offline for just a few days, something about traveling to a family reunion…"

Lexington scratched his scalp as he tried to recall. "Nooo… I haven't heard from her at all. And it's been nearly three weeks now… Well, maybe she's getting an upgrade or something. Hey, wait till I tell you about StarStreaker's latest project…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Late Friday morning on Riker's Island. Normally, Jason would have been exercising down in the gymnasium at this time, lifting weights and pushing his body to the limits. But not this morning…

"Consider yourself lucky, pal; you can keep the wheelchair after all," the corrections officer said jovially as he gave Jason a little helpful push to roll onto the platform that had just lowered, with a hiss of hydraulics, from the bus that had pulled up in front of him a few minutes ago. "It's probably worth a few hundred bucks, too, but don't be stupid and try to fence it…"

Jason made no reply except a vague nod of his head, as the lift slowly raised up to the level of the bus entrance so he could roll inside. Other Riker inmates—_former_ inmates—were already on board, and glaring impatiently at him for making them wait even for a few minutes before starting the drive back over the Riker's Island Bridge to Queens, and their freedom.

He was free again. Free! As he'd been leaving the mess hall that morning after breakfast, he'd been told that all charged against him had been dropped, and he was free to go. No reason had been given, either; the sudden shock of it, after nearly inuring himself to years of confinement, still left him feeling dazed and confused. How had this happened? …And what about Robyn, his sister? When he'd collected enough of his scattered thoughts together to ask about her, not long before being wheeled out to join the other ex-inmates waiting to leave, he'd been told that she'd been released already, and left on the first bus over the bridge that morning. And with his personal effects, he'd been handed an envelope with his name on it. Inside had been a long letter from Robyn, a very chatty one filled mostly with nonsense and false reminiscences, although only someone who'd been present when they were growing up would know they were falsehoods. What was going on?

As the bus rumbled over the bridge, Jason pulled the letter out again, looking it over… and realized it was in code. A very basic code, too, one that he would have seen through immediately if he hadn't been basically in shock for the last two hours. When reading every fifth word, the chatty letter full of nonsense resolved itself into a terse message:

Jason,

You're free because I made a business deal. Take care of yourself, I'll be out of the country but I'll contact you soon via the New York post office box we established.

Robyn

A business deal? What sort of business deal resulted in their freedom, all the charges against them being dropped? And what sort of businessman could offer such a deal? …Had Robyn sold her _soul_ to secure her and her brother's release?

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

The bus rumbled away from Queens Plaza, leaving Jason sitting there on the curb in his wheelchair with the few personal effects he'd entered prison in besides his clothes, contained in a paper bag clutched to his lap. Besides the wheelchair, which he'd been indeed lucky to keep, and the paltry few dollars they normally gave people released from Riker's, all he had was the standard two-fare Metrocard for the bus. Other ex-inmates milled uncertainly around him, in the same state of not knowing what to do next; others who either lived nearby or just had been through this routine before were already purposefully vanishing into the crowds.

A man came up to him, wearing an expression that was half-pitying and half-delighted to see him; Jason's brain kicked back into gear as it added up the expression and the leaflets in the man's had and summed up, _charity mission worker_. The man handed out the leaflets, which turned out to be advertisements for a mission house only four blocks away, and gave directions to several of the ex-inmates standing around. The leaflets promised food and shelter for the homeless, and Jason swallowed hard as he realized that that was very likely where he'd end up that night. The Canmores had money in various Swiss bank accounts, built up over a thousand years of making deals along with hunting the Demon, and Jason had long since memorized the numbers and access codes for them, but he was sure that his brother Jon had drained those accounts in order to fund and outfit his Quarrymen, and pay for all the anti-gargoyle advertising he'd been hearing about.

And not only did he have no money, but no friends hoping to see him either. Except Elisa, but when he'd tried to call her before his release, her phone had rung without answer; she might have unplugged it or just turned off the ringer in order to get a decent day's sleep, trusting the precinct to use the cell phone if they really needed to get in touch with her. But with Robyn gone and Jon, who'd evidently gotten in the habit of changing safe houses periodically, also beyond his reach, Elisa was his only remaining point of contact. He thought briefly of contacting the 23rd Precinct, but just as quickly dismissed the thought; there were probably a large number of officers there who held a real grudge against him for wrecking the place two months earlier, and would be not at all happy to see him out on the streets again.

He shivered as a chill wind snuck through his clothing and raised goosebumps on his skin, then resigned himself to spending time at the homeless shelter, at least until he could contact Elisa. He started rolling the wheelchair down the sidewalk, curtly refusing the well-meaning missionary's offer to push him there; he still had _some_ pride left. Even if he had very little else; few friends, no money, and now that he no longer hunted the Demon, no purpose…

As he rolled along, shoving the wheels against the stiff wind picking up, an flyer advertising something cartwheeled down the sidewalk and slapped up against his paralyzed legs. Irritably, he paused to brush it off… Then paused. The flyer was an advertisement for a washing machine sale, but that wasn't what caught his attention. The flyer's paper was the same color as the one Elisa had sneaked in to him on Tuesday, about the P.I.T…

There had been a phone number at the bottom of the flyer, a point of contact for the meeting to be held. Bryce Canmore had ensured all his children were given memory and observation training along with their combat and weaponry lessons, as a Hunter had to be skilled at tracking his prey. Robyn had been the best at it, with nearly a photographic memory, but Jason had learned his lessons well enough to at least memorize simple strings of digits, such as phone numbers; he could clearly picture that number in his mind's eye. And now…

Jason grinned wryly as he began pushing himself down the sidewalk a little faster. Well, he still had no money and few friends, but now he had a purpose, and possibly the hope of making a few new friends as well. Even if his new purpose would have his dearly departed father, and every Canmore in his long and proud ancestry, spinning in their collective graves. _Aye, if Da were alive he'd be dying again of the shock and shame, to find out that his eldest boy intends to join the People for Interspecies Tolerance, and actually help a clan of gargoyles in being **accepted** instead of hunted. But Father, the times have changed, and so have I…_

**TO BE CONTINUED!**


	3. Part 3: PAAAARRR-TEEEEE!

**LIFE GOES ON**

THE TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'… PART 3: _PAAARRR-TEEEEE_!

By Kimberly T. (e-mail: kimbertow at yahoo dot com)

Author's notes: In addition to the usual disclaimer about Disney owning the gargoyles, Paramount owns everything pertaining to Star Trek, and the songs mentioned herein belong to the named artists and their respective record labels. And Christine Morgan, another author who never fails to inspire me, owns both Billy the stripper and the legendary Bakerotique. Also, since this particular chapter has such a strong 'R' rating (definitely not recommended for younger viewers! If you haven't _at least_ had Sex Education in school yet, stop reading this _right now_!) it's become Part 3 of 4; the wedding we've all been waiting for will be in the next and final chapter. Really, I promise this time!

(And just so everyone knows: I personally never have more than a couple drinks per year, but this chapter is all about partying, and most adult Americans can't seem to comprehend the idea of a great party without large quantities of booze. The only two of the many, many drinks I mention or describe in this story that I myself have actually tasted are Pina Coladas and the nonalcoholic Black Cow. But there's a website out there that describes, in detail, how to make every alcoholic AND nonalcoholic drink mentioned herein and about four thousand more: the Webtender, at http/ www dot webtender dot com If you're planning to throw a party and want to serve something more creative than cases of soda or a keg of beer, I heartily recommend it! They have recipes for party-sized-punchbowl drinks, too.)

* * *

Early Friday afternoon, at the JFK Airport. TWA Flight 607 from Dallas-Fort Worth had taxied up to the terminal fifteen minutes ago, and three family members stood waiting in the terminal for a fourth member to emerge. 

Beth Maza bounced out of the passageway and into her parents' and elder sister's arms, laden down with carry-on bags and chattering nonstop with excitement. "Hi everyone, great to see you again so soon, would you believe I actually got propositioned on the flight! But don't worry Dad, I turned him down, even if he was awfully cute. So let's go, gotta lot to get done still, huh? What time's the party start?"

"Party?" Elisa said, once she could get a word in edgewise. "The wedding's tomorrow, sis…"

"No, the bachelorette party!" And as soon as she said that, Beth clapped a hand over her mouth and looked chagrined. "Oh, darnit, I forgot…"

"_Somebody_ needs to remember to engage her brain before opening her mouth," Diane Maza said with a sternly raised eyebrow at Beth, before turning to Elisa with an apologetic smile. "You know every wedding should have a bridal shower, dear; we've arranged to have a little party for you tonight, just for us ladies. Since Beth is the Maid of Honor, traditionally she'd be hosting it, but since she could only arrive today I've been organizing it instead."

"So that's why you said I needed to come by again tonight, hm?" Elisa asked with her typical half-smile. "Not for a final fitting for the wedding dress."

"Not for yours, dear, though Beth's is another matter. But we'll get that done this afternoon, before the party," as Diane gave her youngest daughter another pointed look.

Beth looked like she was dying to say something more, but kept quiet as they made their way through the terminal. But at the nearest restroom, she grabbed her mother's elbow before saying aloud that she needed to make a pit stop, as the airplane's restroom had always been occupied. Diane took the hint and followed her daughter inside the restroom, and once they were away from Elisa and her father Beth whispered urgently, "Mom, we _really_ gotta talk. I don't know if you know this, but…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

At virtually the same time but several miles away, Jason Canmore was discovering that his future prospects were actually much brighter than he'd first thought when he'd gotten off the bus from Riker's Island.

Two hours ago he'd been released from prison, all charges against him mysteriously dropped, thanks to an even more mysterious deal struck by his sister Robyn. But though he once again had his freedom, he had very little else to call his own besides the wheelchair the prison officials had let him keep. No money, no home, no family he could contact after Robyn had disappeared so mysteriously and Jon had placed himself out of reach, and no friends besides Elisa Maza.

Now he still had no home, no available family and only one friend… but he had money again. Between Queens Plaza and the Queens Men's Shelter lay a section of Queens' business district, with a branch of the Bank of America. On an impulse, since he had little better to do at the moment, Jason had wheeled himself in there and asked to speak with a Customer Service representative about opening an account.

He'd shaven and cleaned up as best he could before leaving Riker's, but he knew all too well that his shabby clothes and the decrepit secondhand wheelchair he was using did not make for a good first impression. He'd had to wait for over half an hour to even speak with a representative, and even then he might not have done so except he'd deliberately parked himself in front of the office door to prevent the man from leaving for lunch. And even then, it had taken every last ounce of the Canmore charm he'd inherited from his grandfather to get the man to grant him access to a phone with an outside line, so he could check the Swiss bank accounts the Canmores had established over the centuries and see how much was left in them.

He hadn't expected to find much at all, as the Hunters had invested well over three million dollars in that hovership he and his siblings had brought to New York. (What had happened to that, anyway? When he and Elisa had arrived at the ruined cathedral, he'd seen with his own eyes that the hovership had somehow been crashed into the side of the cathedral. Had Demona gotten off a lucky shot at the airfoils with armor-piercing weapons, or had somebody just forgotten how to steer the ruddy thing! He'd never had time to ask before being shot, and afterwards, by the time he'd woken up in the hospital… the hovership had disappeared, vanished into thin air. Somebody had taken it away, but who? Elisa didn't think it was the NYPD…) And he was sure that what money was left over after buying the airship and upgrading their other weapons had surely been drained away by Jon, in financing, outfitting and advertising for his Quarrymen. Except he hadn't; Jason had been astonished to discover that the accounts were virtually untouched. Which meant that Jon had found himself a _very _wealthy backer in his obsessive campaign against the gargoyles; disturbing news indeed… Jason had mulled that thought over for a bit before setting it aside for the moment, to concentrate on more immediate matters.

Rather than wait for Jon to access the accounts after all, he decided it would be best to withdraw some funds for his own use immediately. He took only one-third of the total; Robyn might well need her share in the near future, wherever she was now, and even if he and Jon had gone their separate ways, he couldn't deny his little brother his share. But still, announcing that he wanted to open an account at the Bank of America and deposit $650,000 immediately had caused a remarkable change in the Customer Service representative; the sodding pillock had gone from sneering to smarmy in 0.5 seconds. And in short order Jason had checking and savings accounts at the bank, designer cheques on order, a bundle of cash and a series of traveler's cheques to tide him over until the regulars arrived, an offer of a company car to drive him to the nearest luxury hotel and very nearly an offer to date the pillock's oldest daughter.

Now, after checking into one of the wheelchair-friendly rooms at the nearest Hilton, Jason contemplated his next move. He supposed it would be to contact some rather unsavory people and see about establishing a new identity for himself; the Canmores had long made it a policy to never use their true names in areas where the Demon was suspected to be hiding. The Demon knew the Canmore name all too well, and past Hunters had learned to their regret that if She heard a Canmore was in the area, that Canmore was apt to find himself under attack before he had a chance to discover the Demon's latest hideout.

Once he'd established a second identity, he'd transfer the bulk of the money into new bank accounts and see about finding a job, and a wheelchair-friendly apartment to live in; perhaps Elisa could help with that. He eyed the phone, thinking of calling her again to let her know the good news… Och, better wait until after he'd gotten the new identity firmly in place. Elisa would definitely be of no help in that; as a police officer, she'd be duty-bound to turn in any ID forgers she came across, and she likely wouldn't understand the need for a false name in the first place.

He picked up the phone and placed a long-distance call to Florida, where resided the forger who had given the Canmore siblings their new identities of Jason Conover, Robyn Correy and Jon Carter when they'd first come to the U.S. in search of the Demon. While waiting to be connected, he idly wondered what to pick for a new last name. Campbell, perhaps? Or Cameron? Cochrane, Cunningham? Something properly Scottish, this time; he was tired of always worrying about his childhood accent showing through. Ah well, something would be suitable. And once he had the new papers and a place to live, it would be time for an ex-Hunter to start working on _saving_ the gargoyles…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Unfortunately, another Canmore sibling was at that very moment looking into another way to destroy most of Manhattan's population of gargoyles, once and for all.

Jon Castaway looked at the two… beings sitting across from him in his office, and tried hard to keep the mingled unease and contempt he was feeling from showing on his face. He and his ancestors had called the gargoyles monsters as often as they'd called them demons given fleshly form. He still thought of the gargoyles as demons, but now he was realizing a new definition for the word 'monster'.

Either unaware or uncaring of the Quarrymen leader's feelings, both Jackal and Hyena were wearing wide grins as they rather uncouthly counted out the money that had just been handed to them. "…Ninety-nine five, one hundred thousand," Jackal finished aloud, the gleam from his cybernetic eye being matched by the gleam in his remaining living one.

"Mmmm, verrry nice," Hyena purred, picking up a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills and rubbing them against her face as though they were fine velvet. The effect was even more disturbing when considering that the cheekbones those bills were being brushed against were plated over in the same gold-burnished metal that covered nearly every inch of her body from the chin on down.

At first Castaway had found it hard to believe what his sources had told him; that these people had been turned into cyborgs, not as the only way to save what was left of their lives after disastrous injuries, but by _choice_. They had chosen to reject the perfectly healthy forms God had given to them, traded them in for weapon-enhanced limbs and more as if they were dealing in used car parts. And according to his source, even before their cyborgization these two had a reputation for bloodthirstiness that was only outmatched by their greed. Under other circumstances, Jon would have preferred not to be in the same city with such creatures, let alone the same room.

But after that rogue squad of Quarrymen had tarnished his organization's image by attacking that group of college students, it had soon become obvious that the 'People for Interspecies Tolerance' was not going to simply fade and wither away like so many ridiculously idealistic youth organizations did. Word had come to him from one of his college student recruits, that the P.I.T.'s organizers now had corporate funding, similar to his own. And not from Xanatos Enterprises, which he'd halfway been expecting and preparing to counter with a smear campaign, but from Cyberbiotics Corporation! Already, those misguided fools were preparing a massive publicity campaign to trumpet the gargoyles' supposed 'good' side to the ignorant masses, much like Julius Streicher and Joseph Goebbels had propagandized for the Nazis in World War II.

Castaway had suggested to the Quarrymen's own leading financial backer, Oliver Grimm, that even if they couldn't launch a financial assault against Xanatos Enterprises, they should try to remove the P.I.T.'s funding by launching a financial assault on Cyberbiotics. Grimm was looking into it, but Castaway worried that whatever he had planned would take too long to put into effect. No, they needed decisive action _now_, before those winged monsters gained even more followers amidst the milling sheep of humanity; cutting out the cancer before it could spread further, by striking at the source.

The Quarrymen had launched an assault on the Aerie Building before, sending two helicopters full of their best hand-picked warriors to attack the building one morning and destroy the gargoyles sleeping there during a critical two-hour window when the castle's defenses were down. That assault had failed for reasons they still didn't comprehend, costing them not only both helicopters but twelve of the sixteen men, vanished without a trace. The remaining four men had found themselves waking up on benches in Central Park, stripped to their underwear and with no memory of the assault or what had happened afterwards, or even of anything at all after going to bed the night before… and had been so unnerved as a result that all four had summarily turned in their memberships.

Castaway had tried to obtain justice for his missing Quarrymen, filing charges of kidnapping against Xanatos and his corporation. But he'd been frustrated by those bloody rule-minded police, when they had pointedly asked him if (a) he had any proof at all that Xanatos' people were holding them, and (b) what exactly had those men been doing, allegedly heading for the top of that building in the first place, without filing the proper flight plans with the proper authorities? Surely he was aware that landing a helicopter on private property without prior permission was considered trespassing… was he _sure_ that was their destination? In the end, he hadn't even been able to convince them to obtain a search warrant to see if his helicopters were actually up there.

Castaway wasn't about to risk any more of his people in another assault on the castle, not until he understood the nature of Xanatos' new mysterious weaponry and had some idea of how to counteract it. But he had no qualms at all about sending hired mercenaries up there, particularly these two, the more-or-less human equivalent of rabid dogs. Although it had galled him to no end that, considering that these two had a history of enmity with the gargoyles, they had still demanded an obscene amount of money for their work.

Now that they had half of their payment in hand, the two cyborgs turned back to him with gleaming predatory smiles… literally, as somewhere along the way Jackal had even gotten his teeth modified, replacing ordinary bicuspids with gleaming carnivorous fangs. Castaway kept his face expressionless as he asked, "Are you clear on your instructions?"

"They're not exactly hard to follow," Jackal drawled with an amused smirk. "Get to the castle on top of the Aerie Building after daylight, and smash the gargoyles while they're stoned." The smirk widened into a grin again. "We get the remainder of our payment when we come back with proof of at least three dead, with an extra twenty-five thousand bonus for every gargoyle head we bring back after that."

Castaway kept his face expressionless. "And…?"

Hyena answered him, her face drawn in a pout as she sighed, "And we have to avoid hurting any humans in the process. No harming innocent bystanders, yada yada yada…"

"That is correct. Avoid harming any innocent bystanders." Then Castaway let himself smile a cold, cold smile. "Of course, considering that David Xanatos is the one who brought those gargoyles to his home in the first place, he himself can hardly be termed innocent…"

The twins' sulky pouts became homicidal grins again.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

The late afternoon sun was peeking through the clouds on the horizon when an old but reliable Chevrolet sedan backed carefully into in the driveway of the suburban house that had been the Maza family home for decades. Beth Maza hopped out of the driver's seat and fumbled with the garage door, grumbling about her 'stick-in-the-mud' parents who had never bothered to upgrade to an automatic garage door opener. Once the garage door was open, the reason was obvious; the garage was so full of tools and boxes and whatnot that there wasn't enough room to park a car inside. But Beth was able to back the car halfway in, enough that the neighbors couldn't see one of the back passenger doors open, at the same time as the front passenger door. Dana Labyrinth got out of the front seat and pretended to fumble for a few moments with the bags she'd brought, blocking more of the view as Maggie Reed-Maza, keeping her felinoid head low and her wings tightly furled, scrambled out of the back seat and headed for the door to the house in the back of the crowded garage.

By the time Beth had re-parked the car, closed the garage and gone into the house, Maggie and Dana were already inside and being warmly greeted by Diane Maza, who showed them where to put the bags and boxes they'd brought with them. Dana signed a question to Diane, and Maggie interpreted for her, "Is Peter here?"

Diane gave a wry grin as she replied, "No, dears, he's gone off to spend the evening with some old friends of his, other retired police officers and firefighters. He said that, despite over twenty years on the force, he's 'not brave enough to face a house full of ladies' all by himself."

All three of the younger ladies giggled or snickered, before Beth asked her mother hopefully, "So, did you work everything out now?"

Diane smiled indulgently as she nodded. "Yes, we managed to coordinate everything nicely after all. She'll come to the house with a large van about an hour after sunset, after we've all had time to chat with Elisa, have a bite to eat and play a few of the traditional games."

"Yes!" Beth crowed, bouncing a little in sheer excitement. "That's when we'll start to _really_ have fun…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

"…Glad I could help, lass," 'Professor Lennox MacDuff' said as he politely but ushered a female student of his out of his office. "I'll see ye in class next week."

But the female student balked slightly at the door, looking concernedly over her shoulder at her instructor in Medieval History. "Professor, this is kind of a personal question, but are you feeling okay? You… well, you seemed sort of 'out of it' in class on Wednesday and this morning."

"Och, 'tis nothing, lass… 'tis, ah, 'tis the cold medications I've been taking. 'Tis the 'flu season' now, ye know; have ye gone to Student Medical fer yer vaccinations?"

The student cringed and replied that she hadn't; she really hated needles. To which her professor scowled and said, "Lass, 'tis people like ye, people who won't have themselves or their children vaccinated 'gainst diseases, who'll be contributing to the rise of the next great plague to sweep th' country! If ye fear a wee small needle, how much more should ye be fearin' havin' yer pretty face scarred an' forever ruined by th' Pox, or yer limbs _paralyzed_ by Polio! If ye'd seen what I've seen, back in… Och, never mind, lass," as he shook his head, half in anger at himself for getting carried away like that. "Sorry to frighten ye," which he had; the poor student was nearly cringing against the far wall, her face gone paste-pale. "'Tis been a long week, an' I'm due for a rest. I'll see ye in class next week…"

The student scurried out, wondering if Student Medical was still open, and after a few minutes more 'Professor MacDuff' locked the door of his office and headed for the street, muttering under his breath, "Bloody blue bitch, ye'll get me tossed into _gaol_ if ye keep this up… Well, whatever ye're up to, tonight I aim to outdo ye!"

And not ten minutes later, a woman came striding up to his office door. She had brown hair kept in a tidy bun, piercing blue eyes in an oval-shaped face, and was dressed in a modest yet stylish pantsuit… all of which somehow seemed at odds with her figure; easily over six feet tall, with utterly Amazonesque proportions from her broad shoulders on down. She was toting a briefcase the size of some travelers' suitcases, but judging by the ease with which she carried it might have been no more to her than a fashionable lady's purse. The briefcase went down with a heavy thump in front of the door labeled "Prof. L. MacDuff," and she knocked on the solid oaken door hard enough to rattle it slightly. When no response came, she knocked again, and bellowed in a voice like a drill instructor straight out of Camp Pendleton, "Professor, if you're in there, open up! I am _not_ one of your students!"

After waiting for a brief while longer, she scowled and grabbed her briefcase, and pulled a short stack of 'Post-It' notes out of it. After scribbling a few phrases on one of the sheets and slapping it onto the door's nameplate, she grabbed her briefcase again and marched off, muttering to herself; "All right, time to break out the NVG's and the sniper-scope…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

"I'll see you all later; have a good time, father!" Angela called gaily over her shoulder as she leaped off the battlements of the castle, a few minutes after sunset, to head for the Maza family home.

"Be careful and steer clear of Quarrymen!" Broadway called after her anxiously, before turning back to the others in the clan. Most of whom were currently surrounding Goliath, tugging on his hands and wingtips like overeager hatchlings to get him moving towards the roof entrance and cajoling, "Come on, Goliath, it'll be great! You'll have a blast!"

But Goliath balked again, digging his heel spurs into the cobblestones as he protested, "If this party is to be so wonderful, why are you only now telling me about it?"

"Because surprising the groom is another tradition," Xanatos said firmly as he pointedly held the door open for them all. "Just be grateful that we decided against the traditional method of surprising; _kidnapping_ the groom to take him to the party site." Xanatos had considered it, but had finally decided that he didn't really need the expense of replacing all the Steel Clan robots Goliath would probably trash while resisting his kidnapping.

"Ye're the one who said yerself that the mating ceremony would combine human and gargoyle customs," Hudson said with a grin, from where he was standing next to his good friend Jeffrey Robbins. "And as I understand it, this sort of party is a right proper wedding custom…"

"It's a time-honored tradition, Big Guy," Matt Bluestone chimed in from behind Goliath, as he good-naturedly tried to shove the gargoyle nearly twice his size further towards the door. "And since you're getting married to a human, you just gotta have a human-style bachelor party…"

"Aye, an' get properly soused on yer last night of freedom!" MacBeth added, as he circled around behind the gargoyle and gestured for Matt to stand aside, while he fished a ballpoint pen out of his pocket. "So get moving, ye great lummox, fer there's a grand time a'waitin' ta be had!" And with that, he jabbed the point of the pen right above the base of Goliath's tail.

Goliath actually _yelped_ as he abruptly sprang forward, nearly knocking over two members of his clan, then spun around fast to give MacBeth a killer glare while he rubbed at the sore spot. But the immortal Scot was utterly unfazed by his glare, and brandished the pen with a grin to wordlessly suggest that the clan leader could expect more of the same if he didn't cooperate. Grumbling, Goliath headed for the stairs (reflecting that only a man who'd once allied himself with a medieval clan of gargoyles would know just where to poke one and make it count), and the rest began cheering as they followed him inside.

Just then, two more winged shapes came gliding in out of the gloom. "Hey hey, don't start the party without us!" Talon good-naturedly protested as he and Claw landed on the roof together.

"Hey, Talon! Claw! Glad you decided to come after all!" Brooklyn said, with his beak split in a wide grin of delight and surprise. The surprise was understandable; when he'd spoken to them privately last Wednesday, both the mutates had flat-out refused to come to the party, as it was being held in the home of the man who had been responsible for turning them into mutates in the first place.

"Yeah, well, both Maggie and Dana said we should go," Talon explained as they joined the others in trooping downstairs. "Seeing as how we didn't have a bachelor party before our own wedding, though our ladies had their bridal shower. And as they're going to Elisa's party tonight, they insisted we have some fun for ourselves."

"Now, that's an understanding partner!" Matt commented from the back of the party, as Xanatos led the way to his private lounge. (Xanatos overheard that and thought to himself, but carefully did NOT say aloud, that that also meant the ladies could thoroughly enjoy themselves at the party, without feeling guilty over their poor husbands sitting at home alone.)

"Aye, ye must ha' married a pair o' angels," MacBeth agreed, just as he accidentally stepped on Lexington's tail. Lexington yelped, spun around as he jerked his tail out from under and glared at MacBeth for a few moments as he massaged the trod-on spot, muttering under his breath about humans having no respect for valuable appendages. "Och, sorry, lad; I didna mean to…"

"Seems like somebody started partying a little early," Matt commented as he significantly raised his eyebrows at MacBeth.

"Och, no, this be th' blue bitch's doing," MacBeth muttered quietly. "But I tell ye that once the drinkin' starts, I intend to make up fer it an' more!"

Lexington overheard that, and stiffened slightly before dropping back and gesturing for the two gentlemen to hang back with him. Fortunately, Jeffrey Robbins and Broadway (the only two males present who did _not_ know Demona was back in town) were at the head of the party and oblivious to the goings-on at the back, and so it was only a few moments before they were out of hearing range as Lexington asked quietly, "You're saying that you're feeling tipsy… because of Demona?"

MacBeth nodded. "Aye, an' I know it's her, because the feeling comes and goes as I go about the town and the university. Downtown I'm sober as a judge, but here I'm feelin' it a bit, on campus I'm havin' to watch how I walk an' by the time I get uptown I'm three sheets t' the wind, an' all without tasting a drop! For some reason, th' bitch must be drunk as a lord _and_ his entire court. An' she's been that way since late Monday…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Ohhhh, yes, Demona was indeed drunk. So very, very drunk that, as she blearily raised her head and reached for another bottle, she noticed absently that her skin was blue again instead of pink. Alcohol had so numbed her senses that she'd barely noticed the normally bone-wracking pain of her transformation at sunset. She tried to contemplate that for a moment, then gave up and took another swig of bourbon. She was too drunk to string more than two thoughts together… but then, that was the whole idea.

She was drinking because thinking hurt too much. Thinking meant remembering her encounter with the students at Columbia University on Sunday night, and her meeting with the P.I.T. on Monday afternoon. It meant realizing that there really were humans who wanted to help and befriend gargoyles, not because they wanted to strike a deal for protection at night or wanted an army of winged soldiers for conquering their enemies, but just because they thought it was the right thing to do. It meant realizing that she'd been wrong to try to wipe out the entire race for all these long centuries… Realizing that Goliath was right after all. And worst of all, realizing that her entire life had been a colossal _waste_. Realizing that not just Humanity, but all of Gargoyle-kind would have been better off if she'd died in the massacre, or better yet, never been hatched.

She couldn't kill herself; she'd tried that before, from time to time over the centuries, and finally given it up. So instead, she got very, very drunk.

If not for the same spell that gave her immortality working overtime at cleaning the toxic levels of booze out of her system, she would have been dead of sheer alcohol poisoning by Tuesday morning. But Demona never let herself get completely sober; every time she grew sober enough to stand up unaided, she drank herself to the point of unconsciousness again. Her wine cellar had been empty since Thursday morning, but she'd called a nearby liquor store and paid a positively obscene amount of money for the store owner to deliver case after case of liquor in various varieties to her door, with no questions asked. Now the bottles littered the floors of nearly every room in her small mansion, and the intercom on the wall of her living room buzzed for her attention and squawked a query; another deliveryman had arrived at the entrance with more.

Demona fumbled and stumbled her way over to the intercom panel, and finally managed to hit the switch and tell the man at the deliveries door, "Jus' leave 'em there. I'll p(hic) 'em up later." Later, she'd let herself sober up just enough to go downstairs and carry the case of liquor inside. Then she'd drink herself into oblivion once more.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Xanatos' private lounge was a decorator's paean to the American ideals of masculinity: walls paneled in dark walnut, and decorated on one side with various stuffed animal heads and paintings of hunting scenes, and on the opposite side with paintings and sketches of nude ladies in various poses. A well-used dartboard hung between a stuffed moose head and a stuffed bear head on one wall, not far from the cue rack for the pool table to one side of the room. The room also boasted a large card table with a ready supply of poker chips and cards, surrounded by comfortable chairs that looked sturdy enough to suit even Goliath's butt. More of those sturdy chairs were facing the massive entertainment center that took up the entire third wall of the room, complete with multiple CD and video racks, six-foot speakers and the largest TV screen any of them had ever seen. The fourth wall of the room was taken up by a fully stocked bar with row after row of bottles of all kinds, and Owen Burnett stood behind the bar, patiently waiting to serve them.

MacBeth blinked at one of the ladies portrayed on the wall and asked, "Gustave Courbet?"

"His 'Standing Female Nude'," Xanatos confirmed with a smile. "The original, of course."

"Thought I recognized her," MacBeth commented as he nodded and turned away. "Such a sweet lass she was, too… We met in this little café in Paris, back in… 1848, wasn't it?…"

Their brief exchange went unnoticed by the rest of the crowd, as Matt, Talon and the Trio all converged on the bar with cheers and whoops of enthusiasm. Hudson was guiding his friend around and describing the room for him, and he reached the bar just in time to hear Lexington say excitedly, "I'll have a Screaming Orgasm!"

"Ye'll have **_what?_**" as Hudson frowned horrendously at the youngster.

"It's the name of a drink, Hudson," Jeffrey chuckled. "People think it's funny to give bizarre names to mixed drinks. If I remember right, a Screaming Orgasm has… vodka, Amaretto…"

"And Bailey's Irish Cream," Owen finished for him, as he expertly mixed the drink. He was hampered only slightly by having only one useable hand for the task, as the bar was equipped with an automated cork-puller and even a labor-saving device designed to pry off or unscrew the small caps of other bottles; clearly, the bar had been designed or later modified with his handicap in mind. Once he had served Lexington his requested drink in a cocktail glass, he asked, "And what will you have, sirs?"

"Oh, how about…" the middle-aged Vietnam veteran grinned with the mischief of his misspent youth as he decided aloud, "Tie Me to the Bedpost!"

"Malibu rum, Melon liqueur, lemon vodka and sweet-n-sour shaken with ice," Owen said aloud for Hudson's sake as he began putting the drink together.

Hudson scowled and shook his head. "Bah, I'll have none of that fancy modern stuff; give me a good solid ale! Or mead, if ye have that!"

Owen efficiently produced brands of both for Hudson's perusal, adding that both had been imported from an Edinburgh brewery. Hudson judiciously sampled both and decided he'd have a large tankard of ale, and shouted for Goliath (who had been trying to unobtrusively edge back out the door), "Hoy, lad, get yer tail over here an' have a drink! They've got mead that should be to yer liking, at least!"

Goliath sighed resignedly, but headed for the bar and in short order had a mug of the amber-colored liquid in one hand and was sipping it appreciatively. Meanwhile, Talon took his Rum-n-Coke in hand, turned to Claw and asked, "What about you, what're you having?"

Claw had been hanging back a little uncertainly, and now he signed to his fellow mutate that he didn't know of any good drinks, he'd never been a serious drinker and had hardly ever gone to any bars before his transformation, and would his friend recommend something easy for him to handle?

Talon grinned, showing all his teeth. "Why, sure I will! Owen, how about fixing my friend here an Easy Does It?" Then he casually leaned against the bar as he chatted, blocking Claw's view of what Owen was using to mix his drink: equal parts of Kahlua, Bailey's Irish Cream and Everclear…

Brooklyn was already a quarter of the way through his Long Island Iced Tea, having discovered a taste for them at the Halloween party a few weeks back. Lexington, who had once spent a few hours exploring the famous 'Webtender' website for interesting-sounding drinks, recommended Broadway try a Banana Boat…complete with banana. Matt smacked his lips appreciatively after taking another sip of his Sex on the Beach, and told Owen approvingly, "Perfect. I gotta admit, you got a real talent for mixing drinks. Did you used to work in a bar or something?"

Owen studiously focused on mixing the melon liqueur, banana liqueur, Blue Curacao, pineapple juice and other ingredients for Broadway's Banana Boat, seeming not to hear Matt's casual question. But then he said, very softly, "Once. Some time ago." Then he went back to mixing the drink, and said no more.

"Hey, check these out," Brooklyn said as he poked at a silver tray at one end of the bar, covered with little gel cubes in every color of the rainbow, that jiggled when he nudged the tray. "Are these what I think they are?"

"Jell-O Shots!" Talon said with a grin as he came over, neatly speared a red one with a talon and popped it into his mouth. "(slurp) Ahhh, Cherry, my favorite." And made with enough vodka to give each little cube a real kick, too.

The barstools were also sturdy enough to seat the gargoyles, and Goliath sat down on one as he drank his mead. It was a fine brew, he had to admit that, as sweet and at least as potent as the best mead ever brewed back in Castle Wyvern in days of old. So far, this bachelor party seemed all right, but he wondered what sort of party awaited his beloved Elisa.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Elisa parked her Fairlane on the street in front of her parents' house and looked upwards, half out of habit now after dealing with gargoyles for the last few years, and noticed the winged shape slowly spiraling downwards in the evening gloom. Angela waved to her as she spiraled down for a landing in the back yard, but rather than draw attention to her by waving back Elisa just nodded in her general direction before going up to the front door.

Her mother gave her a big hug of welcome before ushering her into the living room, where Beth, Dana and Maggie were all waiting for her with big smiles. Moments later Angela joined them, gave Elisa a hug and added her brightly-wrapped gift to the small pile already sitting on the coffee table, next to the brightly decorated cake, pile of paper plates and trays of hors d'ouevres. "So, Sis; nervous about tomorrow night?" Beth asked with a smirk, as their mother brought a bowl of punch out from the kitchen.

"The butterflies in my stomach are spawning new generations," Elisa admitted wryly, before adding hastily, "But no, I haven't changed my mind!"

As she'd been facing partially away from Dana, the deaf woman quickly glanced at Maggie for clarification of the words she hadn't been able to lip-read. When Maggie gave her the sign version of Elisa's words, Dana grinned and gave her a big thumbs-up of encouragement.

Angela accepted a glass of punch from Diane as she said to Elisa with a grin, "You do realize that by marrying my father, you're becoming my stepmother, right? So should I call you 'Mom' after tomorrow night?"

Elisa emphatically shook her head as she said, "Don't you dare! I'm way too young to be a stepmother to a gargoyle that's actually older than I am!" Then she gave her mother a mischievous look as she added, "You can call my mom 'Grandma', though; she's got to get used to that title soon enough anyway…"

Diane just rolled her eyes at first, then pretended to glare at Beth and Elisa together as she demanded, "Well, why not! Between you two and your brother's antics, I've already got enough grey hairs for it!" But somehow, both sisters utterly failed to look suitably repentant.

But Dana had a question for Angela, which Maggie willingly relayed for her as she was curious herself: "You're actually older than Elisa? I would have thought you were a little younger, myself, but I never thought about gargoyle aging rates… If it's not too personal a question, exactly how old are you?"

"In calendar years, or growing years?" Angela returned with a wry smile. "In growing years, I'm thirty-eight years old now; I'll be thirty-nine in the spring. But in calendar years, as near as I can tell, I'm either nine hundred twenty-eight or nine hundred thirty years old…"

"**_Whaat?_**"

"It's because she hatched and grew up on Avalon, where time runs so much slower than in our world," Elisa explained hastily to all the open-mouthed ladies present. "A entire day here is only an hour of Avalon's time. But why the two-year disparity in calendar years?"

Angela shrugged. "Our guardians told us that when we all first hatched, we kept them so busy they actually lost track of the days for a little while; it's easy to do so, when Avalon is eternally summer and there are no changing seasons to remind you of time passing. So Princess and the Magus always disagreed on exactly which full moon we hatched under, and a moon's cycle on Avalon is nearly two full years in the outer world. But it's the growing years that are more important, anyway."

The ladies all drank the punch and munched on the munchies while chatting for a while; after Angela explained a little bit more about growing up on Avalon, they all caught Beth up on events in the month since her last visit. They also talked about how life in the Labyrinth had improved since Xanatos had begun helping out, how Maggie's pregnancy was progressing (Everyone worriedly observed but didn't say aloud that she really was growing fast, for someone less than three months along), and other pertinent topics. Elisa found herself relaxing and enjoying the girl-talk, though she was secretly a little disappointed that the party was so… quiet.

When another policewoman had gotten married a few years ago, Elisa had been there for the bachelorette party, which had been considerably more lively; they'd held the party in the back room of a local bar, and everyone had chipped in to hire a Chippendale dancer to do a strip-tease for the blushing bride-to-be. Maria Chavez had even done a karaoke number or two, proving that when she let her hair down and relaxed, the precinct captain could darn near out-sass and out-sultry the Pointer Sisters. But with this party being hosted by her mother, karaoke, rounds of drinks and a Chippendale man were utterly out of the question… Not that Elisa was one of those "party-hearty" types that spent every Friday night getting half-plastered and squealing after half-naked guys, oh no! But she had to confess that, after hearing Beth say "bachelorette party", she'd sort-of been hoping… Still, it was good to just get together and do girl-talk for a while; she really didn't have much opportunity for it in her chosen life. But she couldn't help wondering if the guys were doing anything a little more risqué with Goliath tonight. If they were, she was sure her partner was in on it; Matt had been acting a little secretive and a little more antsy than usual lately…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

"The name of the game, gentlemen and gentlegargs," Matt said with a grin as he reached into a bag he'd brought with him with one hand, while juggling a pair of dice in his other hand, "is 'Dear Betty'. Anyone here ever heard of it before?" he asked as everyone sat down at the cards table with their drinks in hand, and at least another two of the same lined up in front of each of them.

"Ohhh, yesss," Jeffrey said with a slow smile, while Xanatos smirked and Talon showed all his teeth again in a truly wicked grin. "I haven't played that since 'Nam, but I think I remember how it goes… You have the required hat?"

"You bet," as Matt pulled out of the bag a large baseball cap, with a huge set of foam boobs on top of the brim. "Everyone, this is Betty." Then he swiftly reached over and plunked the head down on top of Goliath's head before he could dodge, and said brightly, "Say hello to Betty, everyone!"

Matt, Talon, Jeffrey, Xanatos and MacBeth all chorused brightly, with wide grins on their faces, "Hi, Betty!" but the Trio were too busy gaping and choking on their drinks to join in. Even Hudson sniggered into his fist; he hadn't seen their clan leader looking so ridiculous since he'd been hit in the face with that cream pie a few months back. Goliath scowled and reached up to jerk the offending hat off his head, but Matt dared to stop him with a hand on his wrist, wagging an admonitory finger in his face. "Ah-ah-ah! Tradition is, the _first_ Betty is always the groom. You can't take it off until somebody else becomes Betty…"

If looks could kill, the one Goliath gave Matt would have had the man laid out and ready for embalming as he growled, "And how soon will that be?"

"That's what the dice will decide." And with that, Matt explained the rules:

Everyone rolls the dice in order, starting clockwise from the first Betty. If the dice come up:

1. "Seven to the left"- if you roll a 7, the person to the left of you will drink one drink.

2. "Eleven to the right"- if you roll 11, the person to the right of you will drink one drink.

3. Four and two: touch your nose. The last person to touch his nose must drink _three_ drinks.

4. One and two: Social event - Everybody has a drink, while the dice roller makes a toast. Any toast is allowable, _but_ it must not have been given before in the game; if it has, the toaster must take another three drinks.

5. "Doubles you give"- if you roll doubles you are allowed to give out the total number of drinks. If you roll double sixes that's 12 drinks given out to anyone on the table; either spread out amidst the players or even all to one person.

6. Any three: "Betty" drinks one drink. And if "Betty" doesn't see the roll and does not drink, the player rolling can give Betty _another three_ drinks for not paying attention.

7. If "Betty" rolls a three, he can give "Betty" to whomever he wishes.

The first person who rolls any of the aforementioned rules will get to roll the dice again until they roll something other than that, then pass the dice to the left. The person to the left will roll in the same way. If anyone drops out they must drink _five_ drinks before leaving the table.

"Sounds like an interesting game," Brooklyn said with a grin. "When does it end?"

Talon grinned with all his teeth again. "When everybody has either left the table, or passed out right on it. C'mon, 'Betty', roll the dice…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the Maza home, after everyone had chatted for a while, Diane started the first of the traditional bridal shower games, a game of "Touchy-Feely." She passed around pads of paper and pencils for everyone, then sent around the room ten brown lunch-sack-sized paper bags, each with the top folded over and stapled shut, and each with an ordinary around-the-house object inside. Everyone had to guess what objects were inside the bags, and write their guesses down on the paper provided.

Maggie won that contest, by correctly identifying eight out of ten of the bagged items: a wind-up kitchen timer, a pair of children's scissors, a salad fork, a pack of playing cards, a nutcracker, an oven mitt, a washcloth and a bottle of shampoo. Her party prize for guessing the most correctly was a small sachet of potpourri, and she sniffed it appreciatively; vanilla, her favorite.

The next game was a memory game; Diane brought out a large tray from the kitchen, covered with a towel, and whipped the towel off to reveal a clutter of common kitchen items. After thirty seconds, she covered the tray again, and everyone had to write down from memory as many of the objects as they could recall being on that tray. Elisa's detective career and observation training served her well, and she won that contest by correctly remembering fourteen of the fifteen items (she only missed the tea strainer); her prize was a cake of scented soap. (She also sniffed her gift appreciatively; not because she was especially fond of gardenias, but because she was wondering how Goliath would like the scent on her skin after a shower. He couldn't stand it if she wore a lot of perfume, because his sensitive nose would be bombarded by the odor, but just a hint of a different scent combined with her own definitely got him intrigued.)

Then Diane, with a wicked grin, brought out four rolls of toilet paper. Elisa groaned and rolled her eyes; "Aw, Mom, not _that_ game!"

"Yeah, that game!" Beth grinned even more wickedly than their mother. "The TP Wedding Gown contest! And I hereby nominate my sister for the model for my team!"

Dana found herself volunteered to be the model on the other team, and the two ladies stood still and tried to keep sickly smiles on their faces as the other ladies, giggling all the while, draped them with swaths of toilet paper to make 'wedding gowns.' After ten minutes, they called "Time!" and the two 'dresses' were judged; Diane and Maggie won the prize for the attire they'd created for Dana, though Beth and Angela's creation was given points as well. The winning team members each got a scented candle, and so did both models for being such good sports. (And Beth insisted on taking pictures of both the reluctant models in their TP regalia, for posterity and future blackmail possibilities.)

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the castle, the party was in full swing; "Betty" had been passed from Goliath to Xanatos to MacBeth, who was currently wearing his booby-topped chapeau with a curious drunken dignity while waiting for his turn to roll. Matt had just rolled a one and two, and proposed the following toast: "To the way a genuine smile from a beautiful woman can brighten your whole day." Everyone said, "Hear, hear!" as they downed their drinks.

At the first opportunity Goliath had drunken his way out of the game, hoping to escape the indignities of the party, but Jeffrey followed him out and challenged him to, of all things, a game of chess. Owen had supplied the chessboard and pieces upon request, but the chess game was not going well, at least from Goliath's point of view. As he couldn't leave the game until after passing "Betty" to another player, and as every player who rolled doubles seemed determined to give the guest of honor most of the drinks available, he'd just about polished off the bar's entire supply of mead before having an opportunity to drink his way out. In order to do so he had, at Brooklyn's insistence that he owed it to patriotism for his adopted city, switched to drinks named after the local area.

He'd tried a Long Island Iced Tea, a Manhattan and a New York Lemonade, but found that he rather preferred the taste of a Manhattan Sweet. But even a gargoyle's revved-up metabolism can only take so much; by the time he'd determined which drink was his favorite, all the alcohol he'd imbibed had Goliath in a state far from sober. Which was probably contributing to his present sorry state, which was having the bejesus whupped out of him by a blind man. Jeffrey had sensibly switched to low-buzz beer and minimal-alcohol drinks as soon as the drinking game had started, so he still had full possession of all his faculties, which included his ability to track the locations of all the chess pieces in his head. So far he'd taken four pawns, a bishop and a knight from Goliath, who had only taken a single pawn and a rook in return.

For music, Xanatos proved to all that he had both a theater-quality sound system, and a perverse sense of humor; the giant stereo speakers were playing a preset mix of songs that Bluestone had immediately dubbed "The Gargoyles' Top 40". So far they had heard "Turn to Stone" by ELO, "In the Heat of the Night" by Bryan Adams, "Fly Like an Eagle" by the Steve Miller Band, "Loves Me Like a Rock" by Paul Simon, and "The Night Time is the Right Time" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and now Bob Seger was howling out "Like a Rock."

After ensuring everyone had drinks in hand, Owen quietly slipped out for a moment. When he came back in, he was wheeling in front of him a long table covered with a veritable feast of junk food. Five giant pizzas from Pizza Hut; two Meat-Lover's, a Cheese Lover's, a Hawaiian Delight and a Super Supreme. A massive six-foot-long hoagie from Subway. Six family-sized buckets of KFC chicken; two each of Original Recipe, Hot-n-Spicy, and Honey BBQ. A bag of Ruffles chips the size of a pillowcase leaning against a bag of Doritos just as big, and both surrounded by no less than ten different tubs of dip. All in all, it was a glorious smorgasbord of artery-clogging delights, and even Goliath eyed it appreciatively. Matt Bluestone let out a long, low whistle of appreciation as he set down the dice, Talon and Claw both started drooling in anticipation, and Brooklyn and Lexington greedily rubbed their hands and made appreciative rumbles as they made ready to dive in.

Broadway took one look… and burst into tears.

"Huh!" those closest to him turned to look at him in alarm and dismay, and Brooklyn went over to him to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. "C'mon, bro', what's wrong?" Brooklyn asked concernedly, while thinking, _It can't be the booze; he can't have had more than five drinks so far and even Lex can drink more than that before he gets loopy_…

"I can't take it anymore!" Broadway sobbed into the clenched fists he was holding over his eyes, trying to block out the sight of the feast. "I just can't take it anymore!"

"Can't take what, bro'? C'mon, here, have a seat…" as Brooklyn guided him back over to a chair. "That's it, just sit down…" Broadway sat down in the chair while half of the men in the room gathered uncomfortably around him, and the other half tried really hard to find something else to focus on. With his hand still resting comfortingly on his rookery brother's shoulder, Brooklyn said with uncharacteristic softness, "You want to talk about it?"

"It's this diet!" Broadway finally confessed, glancing miserably upwards before turning his face down again. "I'm so hungry all the time, and my wings always hurt from gliding so much, and I'm going to _die_ before I lose any weight!"

"So why're ye needing ta lose weight so badly?" MacBeth asked, suppressing a hiccup. With the honesty born of the six single-malt whiskeys he'd already downed he added, "Mind ye, it couldn't hurt ta lose a bit; I've seen bloody elephants in (hic) Africa with less on their bones. But ye're a helluva fighter even so, an' me home's got the scorch marks ta prove it! Or it did, afore I had 'em fixed…"

Ignoring most of MacBeth's ramblings, Goliath frowned as he said, "He is right, Broadway; while we would all support you in losing weight if you so desire, it should not be so exhausting and painful as it obviously is for you. What has caused you to decide to diet so drastically?"

Hudson came over and clapped a comforting hand on Broadway's other shoulder, while he said almost grimly, "Not what, Goliath; _who_."

"It's Angela," Broadway confessed miserably, staring down at his toe-talons. "She told me we can't have our mating ceremony until after I lose weight…"

Brooklyn's hand slowly dropped to his side.

"She wants to make sure I'll catch her in our breeding flight," Broadway continued on, oblivious of Brooklyn's reaction. "So I gotta lose at least eighty pounds before then, but I've been checking the scale every night and so far I've only lost four pounds, and I'm just going to die of starvation or my wings will fall right off before I lose the rest…"

"Now, that's just not right," Matt said with slightly blurred certainty, as he waggled a finger at Broadway in a scolding manner. "Here you're not even married yet, and she's already tryin' to change you!"

"Aye, 'tisn't right," MacBeth agreed, throwing a comradely arm around Bluestone's shoulder. "Th' woman's not supposed ta be naggin' ye until _after_ ye're wed!"

"Yeah!" Talon agreed emphatically, while Claw nodded vigorously. That prompted MacBeth to throw his other arm around Claw's shoulder, so the males could present a united front against the female threat.

Even Jeffrey said mildly from where he was nursing his drink, "I still don't know all that much about your traditional culture, Broadway. But I have to say that, with humans, the rule is that if you really love somebody then you accept them the way they are, personality quirks and 'spare tires' and all…"

Goliath frowned, but said nothing. But Matt, MacBeth, Talon, and all the booze they'd been drinking already somehow came to the mutual conclusion that they had to save Broadway from a fate worse than death: becoming a henpecked husband. "Y'gotta stand up for yourself," Matt insisted. "If you let her boss you around now, there'll be no end to it later!"

"Aye, lad, show her who wears th' trousers in th' family!" MacBeth chimed in. Then he blinked, as he realized aloud, "But ye're not wearin' trousers… well, show her who wears th' loincloth!"

And somehow it all evolved into most of the males present, including Brooklyn, chanting, "Go, go, go for it!" as Broadway nearly dived face-first into the buffet.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the Maza home, Elisa and Dan had just finished divesting themselves of the last of the toilet-paper gowns when a horn honked outside the house. Beth instantly jumped to her feet and raced to the front window, and looked out to say excitedly, "She's here! And check out her costume; it's totally authentic!"

"Who's here?" as Elisa hurried to stand beside her sister, while shaking off a strand of TP that persisted in wrapping around her ankle. She looked out the window and saw a van… and an alien.

A humanoid female in a vaguely militaristic-looking uniform, a blue-skinned face framed by a mane of pure white hair and topped by a pair of three-inch-high blue antennae. Memories of old _Star Trek_ reruns brought the required data to the forefront of Elisa's mind within moments: an Andorian. The Andorian female reached back into the van she'd just gotten out of and pulled out a series of bags, including three garment bags, then looked up as she started towards the house, saw the Maza sisters at the window and waved. Then she started walking up the sidewalk with such an astonishingly sexy swagger, the stride of a woman who knew damn well she could either seduce or kick the collective asses of any five men on the street, that Elisa knew without a doubt she was looking at Fox Xanatos in disguise.

Beth opened the door even before Fox could ring the doorbell, saying with a grin, "Hi! Did you bring everything?"

"Got it all right here," Fox-the-Andorian said with a grin as she held up the bags.

"Wonderful! Bring them in, I can't wait to show Elisa!" Angela called out happily from where she was sitting with Maggie, out of sight of both the door and the front window.

But Fox paused before entering, as Diane Maza came into view. Her entire demeanor shifted with lightning speed from saucy to subdued, and she asked quietly, "May I?"

Elisa glanced from Fox to her mother and understood instantly why Fox hadn't been there at the beginning of the party; because Diane originally hadn't invited her. The Maza family had more than one reason to hold a grudge against the Xanatos family, and though their work on finding a cure for the mutates and on improving life in the Labyrinth had gone a long way towards improving relations, they weren't yet on the Maza's Christmas-card list, and they knew it. But Diane just nodded and put a polite smile on her face, and gestured for Fox to come inside.

Once Fox was in the living room, her saucy grin returned as she handed one of her three garment bags to Dana, one to Angela and one to Elisa. Elisa looked at her bag with confusion, but Angela and Dana both received theirs with wide grins and noises of delighted anticipation. Dana and Maggie immediately retired to Derek's old bedroom, while Angela (who apparently didn't have quite as highly developed a sense of modesty) began stripping out of her usual tunic right there in the living room.

Elisa turned her back to give Angela a little privacy whether she wanted it or not, while she took a look at the contents of the garment bag she'd been handed. Inside she found a uniform from _Star Trek: the Next Generation_, with the bright red sections and pips on the collar to indicate, if the remembered correctly, a lieutenant in Security. "It seemed appropriate for you," Fox told her with a shrug and a grin. "Go ahead, put it on!"

Beth had already headed into the master bedroom with her mother, presumably to put on a costume as well, so Elisa ducked into her and Beth's old bedroom to change. The uniform turned out to be a perfect fit for her; not really surprising, considered Fox had already guessed her size correctly when getting her a new T-shirt and jeans in the aftermath of her and Goliath's first-date-turned-disaster. She put it on and came back out, though she couldn't help looking wistfully back at where her gun and holster were neatly folded under her clothing. If they were about to do what she thought they were about to do, Elisa felt more than a little naked and vulnerable without a weapon handy…

But Fox seem to have anticipated that, as well; when Elisa came back out in her costume the former mercenary pulled a pair of prop phasers out of another bag. Handing one to Elisa, she told her with a grin, "These were just made by the weapons guys down in R those boys really love a challenge. These 'phasers' are really Tasers; see the dart tips poking out here? Standard fifteen-foot range, and delivering a 50,000-volt jolt for exactly 10 seconds; enough to take the fight out of your standard troublemaker in a hurry. This is the safety; flick it off, then aim and press the button here, and the bad guy goes sleepy-bye."

Elisa gave a lopsided smile as she accepted her phaser-Taser, saying, "You do realize that projectile Tasers are illegal in New York?"

"Ah, but not for a police officer in performance of her duties," Fox corrected with a grin, as she holstered her own weapon on her Andorian military uniform. "And if trouble does happen, you can just call me your backup, hm?"

"But I hope we won't be needing those; I'd really like to enjoy the rest of the night," Angela said wistfully as she came over, wearing her new outfit. She was wearing a full-skirted and backless evening gown of black satin, the hem reaching clear to the floor to cover her huge and high-arched feet and the neckline plunging well into her cleavage, guaranteed to distract the average male from noticing anything to do with feet. She carefully wrapped her tail around the calf of her left leg to keep it hidden from view as well, then lightly pirouetted, the skirt gracefully swirling out as she turned, while she asked Elisa, "What do you think?"

"I think if the Trio saw you right now, their tongues would all roll out like red carpets," Elisa said frankly. "But for a disguise…"

"Oh, that's only part of it," Fox assured her, as she reached into another bag and pulled out something in deep purple velvet. "Now come the gloves…"

The gloves were the long and elegant sort, coming up well past Angela's elbows and perfectly matching the color of Angela's wings, which she then caped in front of her to resemble a velvet cloak of deep violet. Angela held up her hands and wiggled her gloved fingers; the pinky finger of each glove was filled with some sort of shaped padding, to make it appear she had the usual full human complement of digits. Fox then produced a thin and short gold chain with a pair of large clasps on either end, which she carefully slipped over the bases of Angela's wing-talons as they clasped together above her cleavage. "Just an elegant little reminder to help her keep her wings caped, as well as make her wing-talons look like a custom-made cloak clasp," she explained to Elisa, "but easy enough to break in an emergency. And once we put on the pancake makeup and the headband to cover your ridges," as she pulled those out next, "Our lady gargoyle will be able to give Elvira a run for her money. Every guy we see will think you're a Goth Girl in full vampiric regalia, and just begging you to nibble on his neck!" Angela grinned wickedly in agreement, showing she certainly had the fangs for it if they did.

As Fox and Angela headed for the bathroom to apply the white pancake makeup, Beth came out of the master bedroom, wearing an outfit she must have brought with her from Arizona; a flowing black robe decorated with crescent moons, stars and various astrological signs embroidered in gold and silver thread. She wore a silver headband with a silver crescent moon centered high on her forehead, and wielded a stick about eighteen inches long and wrapped in silvery tape along its length. She commanded in an imperious voice, "Kneel, ye mundane peasants, to the High Priestess-Mage of Blessed Luna!"

Elisa couldn't help herself; she snickered aloud as she said, "Sorry, Sis; I've heard better imperious tones." And since she hadn't kneeled to Lord Oberon, no way she was going to do it for her bratty little sister.

"Oh, yeah? Well, I'll just have to zap you with my trusty wand!" Beth retorted as she aimed her wand at Elisa's midsection. And to Elisa's surprise, a red beam of light shot out of the tip and hit her square in the stomach. Beth laughed at the look on her sister's face, and explained, "It's actually a laser pointer; I borrowed it from a teacher's assistant," as she thumbed the hidden switch in the base to turn it off.

Elisa grinned as she meaningfully tapped the phaser at her waist. "Better watch it, Pest; this is set on 'Stun'."

But before she could actually explain that it really was set on Stun, Maggie and Dana came out of the bedroom. Maggie was wearing the gorgeous sapphire-blue gown she'd been given for her birthday, but Dana was dressed in an utterly fantastic outfit; a skintight suit covered in thousands of fine feathers in red, gold and white, making a beautiful fiery pattern covering her from head to toe and extending out to the wings that extended from each arm. Plumes of feathers dyed in those same colors extended up from the feathered hood on her head to make a five-inch-high crest, that waved gracefully as Dana danced her way across the room to them.

Angela came out of the bathroom in a few moments, her skin tone now lightened to the palest of cream, with just enough of the true lavender showing through to make her look even spookier, while still the sexiest of vamps. Elisa had to admit that if Elvira saw her now, she'd probably turn green with envy. Fox followed her out with a smug grin of satisfaction, that increased as she saw Dana preening in her new finery. "A top-of-the-line Firebird outfit, originally destined for the Metropolitan Ballet," Fox explained with a conspiratorial wink as she gave Maggie's wings the same elegant gold-chain reminder to keep them caped about her shoulders, then whipped out a camera. She insisted on taking several pictures of Elisa, Angela, Maggie, Dana and Beth separately and together, promising that she'd see the film developed in Xanatos Enterprise's own photo lab and send copies to everybody.

Just as Elisa was taking a picture of Fox as she stood with the group of costumed ladies, Diane stepped out of the master bedroom clad in the traditional clothing she'd worn while in Nigeria the year before: a brightly patterned _buba_ (loose flowing blouse) and _iro_ (wrap-skirt), with a brilliantly contrasting _iborun_ scarf draped down on side of the outfit. Her hands were still busy with arranging the _gele_, the scarf-turban that could be folded and knotted in a variety of ways. Since Diane was evidently going for the most dramatic look, she chose a complicated, double-knotted affair that both increased her height by a good six inches and billowed out to one side even farther. (Elisa privately thought it looked like her mother had grown a second brain or something, but knew better than to say so.) "Here, Elisa, let me have that while you stand with them," she directed as she held her hand out for the camera. "Just a few more photos, then we'll all head out together, hm?"

Fox looked a little startled, but smiled and nodded as she said aloud, "The more the merrier!" Maggie and Dana both blinked a few times, but smiled and said nothing. But Beth looked like she'd just been sucker-punched; her eyes bugged out as her mouth fell open, and she squeaked, "_Mom_! …Mom, you know where we're going, right?"

"Of course I do, dear, but let's not ruin the surprise for Elisa," Diane said calmly as she proceeded to take a few more photos of the group, even while Beth struggled to get her jaw back into place. Elisa looked at her sister, then at her mother, added two and two together and came up with _oh my God_…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Half an hour later, Elisa found herself blindfolded in the back of Fox's van, with her sister Beth sitting on one side and Angela on the other. Everyone was giggling like mad over a dirty joke that Elisa thought _Dana_ had just told, with Maggie acting as her interpreter; it was amazing how creative one could be in sign language. After the giggling died down a bit, Elisa quietly asked her sister, "Let me guess: Mom and Fox originally planned separate parties?"

Beth whispered back, "You guessed it. Traditionally the maid of honor is the one that throws the party, but since I was only arriving today they both assumed they'd have to take care of it themselves. Fox called me on Monday to let me know what she was planning and find out if she needed to get me a costume as well, but Mom only let me know about _her _party in a phone call last night, and by the time I got the message it was too late to call her back. So as soon as you left the house to go back to your place I called the castle, and Mom and Fox managed to reach a compromise while I went to get Maggie and Dana."

"I'm so glad they were able to compromise and throw both parties," Angela whispered, almost wriggling in her seat with excitement. "After the dress fittings on Wednesday I talked to Maggie and Dana, and they've really been looking forward to this, or at least Dana has; Maggie's a little shy. Oh, this evening has already been so much fun, but from what I've been told, it's barely begun!"

"I just hope Mom's coming doesn't throw a damper on the whole second half," Beth whispered _very, very_ quietly to her sister; Elisa would have bet her badge that just then she was glancing nervously at their mother to be sure she didn't overhear. "But she was giggling just now at Dana's joke, so maybe it'll all be okay…"

Moments later, the van pulled over and came to a stop, and Fox called out gaily from the driver's seat, "We're here! But Elisa, you can't take off the blindfold till we're out of the van!"

With ill grace, Elisa let herself be pulled out of the van still blindfolded. Only when she sensed all the ladies giggling around her on the sidewalk did somebody finally remove the blindfold to she could see where they'd taken her. Blinking a few times as her eyes adjusted to the light again, Elisa looked up at the marquee overhead, and smiled lopsidedly as her suspicions were confirmed.

"Let's head on in; I've got us a table reserved right next to the stage!" Fox announced as she led the ladies into **_HunkaMania_**, one of the better-known strip-joints in Manhattan; famous in the entire tri-state area for their _all-male_ revue. Not to mention their barely-clad male waiters, and the masseurs…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the castle, the smorgasbord of junk food that had been brought in earlier was almost completely devoured. The five giant pizzas were down to scattered crusts, the buckets of chicken were now surrounded by a graveyard of tiny gnawed bones, the bags of chips were flattened and empty and even the six-foot hoagie had lost most of its length; and from the way Broadway was devouring the section he'd just ripped off for himself, Xanatos estimated that the rest would be gone within the next twenty minutes.

But Broadway was the only one still paying any attention to the food, and even the drinking game had been basically abandoned; halfway through that gloriously gluttonous feeding frenzy, Xanatos had turned on the giant-screen TV and started playing the first of the movies he'd selected for tonight. The first one was entitled _Call of the Wild_, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the Klondike Gold Rush or a dog named Buck. Oh, yes, it was definitely _that_ sort of movie, and the antics of the lady and gentleman currently on the screen had both Claw and Lexington utterly riveted to the screen, their eyes bugged out and their mouths open… and their hands crossed over their crotches, in an attempt to conceal their current 'pre-dick-aments'. Lexington muttered in tones of awe, "Did you see…? I didn't know human females could _do_ that…"

"Evidently they can, because she's sure as hell doing it," Brooklyn returned in an equally quiet mutter. Xanatos noted idly that the red-skinned gargoyle was definitely in a more composed state than his rookery brother, though he too was watching the screen avidly.

Goliath had been placed front and center in the seat of honor, with Hudson to his left and Matt to his right. They too were watching the goings-on on screen, but their interest seemed flavored with a note of amusement. When the characters on the screen began howling like crazed wolves while 'in congress', the clan leader muttered wryly in an aside to his mentor, "And the humans of the castle used to complain about the noise _we_ made…"

"And about our mating flights upsetting their 'Christian moralities'," Hudson snorted. "Going on and on about how only _beasts_ mated in public and such, and never mind that we all ruddy well knew how the villagers themselves used to celebrate Lughnasa… I always said we were better off, humans and gargoyles alike, afore those priests came to our land waving their crosses and spouting rhetoric."

Just as the film was reaching its climax, so to speak, Lexington jumped out of his seat and ran for the bathroom. Only a minute or two later, the final bellow from one of the characters on the screen was matched by the roar echoing from behind the closed door, and all the other males present traded knowing smiles. When the smaller green gargoyle emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, hanging his head and blushing dark olive, he had to endure some good-natured teasing about getting too involved in his viewing.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

"…And put them all on my tab!" Fox directed the waiter who had come to their table, dressed in nothing more than a bow-tied-collar and a black pair of skin-tight short-shorts. The waiter smiled and nodded, and proceeded to ask the other ladies, in a low husky voice that sent tingles even up Elisa's spine, what their pleasures would be tonight.

Elisa asked for her usual favorite, a strawberry margarita. Beth glanced uncertainly across the table at their mother for a moment, then shrugged and said in a what-the-hell, you-can-only-die-once tone of voice, "I'll have a Sex On the Beach!" Then despite her earlier bravado, she involuntarily flinched as she glanced again at her mother. But Diane only blinked a few times, and said nothing.

Maggie consulted with Dana in sign language for a moment, then told the waiter, "My friend here would like a Mai Tai, please. But I'm afraid I can't have anything alcoholic tonight; can you recommend a few drinks without alcohol in them?"

"Of course," the waiter almost purred, producing a list of drinks from… well, there must have been a pocket on those shorts somewhere, though Elisa would have sworn they were too tight for it. He gave the list to Maggie, then recommended his own personal favorite from the list, 'Safe Sex On the Beach.' Maggie ducked her head and stifled a giggle as she agreed to start with that one.

Diane ordered next, asking for a Pina Colada. Then it was Angela's turn, and she asked politely, "May I have a Long Island Iced Tea, please?" When both Fox and Elisa gave her startled looks, Angela explained, "Brooklyn had a few of those at the Halloween party, and he said they tasted pretty good…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the castle, the first film had ended and Xanatos had just finished loading in the next one. The title (_Midnight Obsessions_) had just finished flashing on the screen when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, and turned around to see Claw listing back and forth ever-so-slightly. The mute mutate signed something to him, and when Xanatos apologetically told him he hadn't the faintest idea what he'd just said, summarily grabbed him by the shoulder to drag him over to where Talon was sitting.

"Hey, don't block the screen!" Talon complained at first, then looked at what Claw was signing to him. "You need me to tell him… **_what_**! Are you serious? Well, yeah, but… okay, okay, I'll tell him!" Then Talon turned to Xanatos and said with a shrug, "Claw says he forgives you for hiring Sevarius and having him mutated, because if he hadn't become a mutate and come to live in the Labyrinth then he'd never have met Dana, and he wouldn't be married and having wild sex now like we just saw on the screen. …Hey, pal, _you_ signed it, I just relayed it!"

"Oh, uh, well… thank you," a wide-eyed Xanatos said to the tiger-striped mutate, who gave him a think-nothing-of-it sort of wave before staggering off to the bar to get another drink.

Talon drained his current glass with a long swallow, gave a tremendous belch and said off-handedly, "What the hell, I sorta forgive you too. Gotta admit, it's cool to be able to fly under my own power 'steada needing a plane… 'Course, if my kid doesn't turn out perfect then I'm gonna haveta gut you like a fish an' leave you hanging from a lamppost in Central Park."

"Of course," Xanatos said faintly, then stood well back as Talon got up to get another drink for himself. And after both mutates had gotten their refills, the billionaire went up to the bar for his own drink and told Owen, "This time, make it a double."

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Once everyone had their drinks in hand, Fox told the waiter to bring another round of exactly the same out for them all, then pulled a small paper bag out of the shopping bag she'd brought in with her and announced that they were about to play a popular bachelorette party game: "I never." The rules were simple: everyone would take turns reaching into the sack, pulling out one of the tiny slips of paper inside and reading it aloud, a sentence beginning with "I never…" And anyone who had actually done that fiendish act must take a sip of their drinks.

The first few phrases pulled out of the sack were fairly innocuous, which made them all the more insidious. Fox started it by reading aloud, "I never… kissed a male over thirty years old." Then she raised her glass and took a drink, as her own husband was over thirty. So did Diane, since her husband Peter was well past that age, and so did Elisa, knowing that Goliath was actually over twice that age 'in growing years', let alone calendar years. And so did Angela, considering that every member of the Trio, despite their occasionally teenager-ish antics, was well over thirty years of age as well.

Elisa was next, and read aloud, "I never… lied about my weight." Then she shrugged and took a sip of her margarita, knowing all too well that the stated weight on her driver's license was about five pounds shy of the truth. Virtually everyone shrugged and followed suit; the only ones not to take sips were Dana and Angela.

Beth read the next one: "I never… lied about my age." This time, every woman at the table traded resigned glances and took a drink, except Angela.

Dana got the next one, and frowned as she read the paper she'd pulled out. Then she shrugged, and instead of handing the paper to Maggie to read she said aloud, in her strange-sounding voice, "I never went skin-nee-dip-ping," before taking a drink. So did Fox, and so did Angela, after Fox explained to her just what skinny-dipping was; Angela actually seemed a little surprised that anyone would deliberately wear clothing to go swimming. Beth took a drink too, blushing under her mother's eagle eye. Elisa eyed her sister, betting it had happened some time ago in Arizona, where the climate was more suitable for skinny-dipping, and privately resolved to worm the details out of her later. Then she took a drink herself, remembering all the times she'd shed her clothes and gone swimming in whatever lake or stream was handy in order to get clean again, while on the World Tour courtesy of Avalon. Of course, she'd only done it during the day, when Goliath was sleeping in stone and couldn't see her, but still…

Then came Maggie's turn, and when she read the slip of paper she'd pulled out she flinched back and whimpered, "Oh, dear… can I try again?"

"Sorry, dear, you have to read what you've pulled out," Fox said with a wicked grin. "But remember, you only have to take a drink if you actually did it…"

Maggie took a deep breath, then said all at once in a rush, "Ineverperformedfellatioforaguy." Then she quickly took a drink, slammed her glass down and tried to hide behind it.

"Oh, God," Elisa and Beth mumbled together, looking across the table at their mother. Then they traded resigned glances between themselves, and took fast sips of their drinks. And then they both chorused in horror, "_Mom_!"

Diane set down the glass she'd just taken a drink from and said serenely to her daughters, "Your father and I have been married over thirty years, dears. A lot can happen in thirty years' time…"

Angela eyed the way everyone at the table except her was drinking (even Dana, after she leaned over and read the paper clenched in Maggie's fist), then admitted aloud, "I didn't understand what she said; what's a 'flay-sho'?"

Diane leaned closer to her and whispered an explanation of what fellatio was. Angela blushed deep purple, then quickly took a drink. And when she set the glass back down and noticed Elisa's disbelieving stare, she protested, "But it shouldn't really count, because it wasn't really me…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Half an hour later, the drinking game was finished when the bag was emptied of all its slips of paper. By that time, both Elisa and Beth were feeling a little drunk, and more than a little shell-shocked. Not only had they, in the course of owning up to having committed various "I never's", forever shattered any virginal illusions their mother might have still had about her two little girls, but they themselves had learned a LOT more about their mother's past and current sex life than they'd ever, ever wanted to know. Beth leaned over in her seat to whisper to Elisa after the game was finished, swaying a bit more than necessary from the two drinks she'd finished off during the game, "All I can say is, thank God Dad ain't here, huh?"

"Amen to that," Elisa whispered back, but a trifle preoccupied; she was eyeing Angela with a touch of concern. The gargess had finished off two Long Island Iced Teas during the course of the drinking game, due to her habit of taking generous swallows instead of shallow sips, and was already halfway through her first New York Lemonade. Goliath had mentioned to her once that the average gargoyle's high metabolism allowed him to handle more alcohol than the average human, but if she'd been a human Angela would have been feelin' no pain by now. But she didn't appear to be affected yet by all the alcohol she'd consumed… not that Elisa really had any clue as to what a drunken gargoyle was like, either…

Just then their regular waiter came over to the table, followed by another scantily-clad waiter, both carrying large silver trays. At Fox's nod, they set the two trays down on the table in front of Elisa, saying in chorus, "Your refreshments, ladies!" Then they began taking orders for more drinks.

Elisa curiously eyed the large bakery box and stack of napkins on one tray, and the pile of small golden boxes on the other, while Fox said with a wicked grin, "I know you had cake and munchies at the house, but I figured that by now somebody might be getting hungry again. Go ahead, Elisa, open 'em up and pass them around!"

Elisa shrugged and opened the large bakery box first, then gasped and slapped the cover back down to shoot Fox a killer glare. Fox only grinned even more wickedly, saying, "Bet you didn't know there's a place called the Bakerotique that makes special Twinkies, hmmm?"

"Let me see!" Beth shoved her sister's hands out of the way so she could open the box again, looked inside and squealed. "Ohmigod, they're all shaped like--and ohmigod, one of 'em's _purple_!"

"Reserved for the bride-to-be, of course," Fox explained. "But feel free to try some of the other colors…" She thought to herself that it had cost substantially more than usual to have two dozen of the Bakerotique's special Twinkies made up in not just cream-yellow and chocolate brown, but dyed with food-coloring to nearly every color of the rainbow, with no questions asked. But it was worth it just to see the ladies' reactions as Elisa resignedly and rather gingerly began taking the baked goods out of the box, placing them on napkins and passing them around. She couldn't resist saying as Elisa cringed again, "By the way, despite the different colors, they all have the same cream filling…"

Each one of the pile of small golden boxes contained a small assortment of fine chocolates… again, all cast in a certain distinctive shape. Each lady present got a box, the bride-to-be got _two_, and Fox set one aside to take back to the castle for Anne Marsden, who was minding Alexander along with her own child while Fox partied.

Then it was time to open the presents they'd all brought to the party. Elisa looked over the stack of bridal shower gifts they gleefully piled in front of her, then decided it would be politic to open her mother's gift to her first. Going with the 'sweet scents' favors theme of the bridal shower held at the house, it was an assortment of scented body oils and perfumes in small vials; some were musk scents, and some were floral. Diane smiled at her and said, "I've no doubt that you'll find a few in that assortment that will please you," and Elisa agreed with a wide smile.

Beth clamored for her gift to be opened next, and to Elisa's utter lack of surprise, her irrepressible sister had gotten her some risqué lingerie; one sleek satin number in the same bold red color as her bomber jacket, and a concoction of black lace that Elisa privately thought to herself wouldn't last more than a single night with Goliath. Oh, he'd try hard to be careful with it, he was nearly always as careful with her clothing as he was with her skin, but the lace was almost guaranteed to snag on his sharp talons. But the red satin… she could almost _hear_ that sexy low growl in her ears as she rubbed the sleek material between her fingers, and had to work hard to keep from blushing as she thanked her sister for the gift.

Angela's gift to her was both romantic and somewhat practical: a picnic basket she'd found somewhere, painstakingly repaired till it was good as new and decorated with brightly colored ribbons threaded in amidst the woven reeds. She'd filled it with a short stack of paper plates and cups, some mostly-matching silverware, a bottle of fine wine from Xanatos' well-stocked wine cellar and a picnic blanket that she had not only found and cleaned up, but painstakingly embroidered with Goliath and Elisa's names, and the date for their wedding tomorrow. "You'll probably want to wait for warmer weather to use it," Angela acknowledged with a wry smile, "but I thought you'd find a moonlight picnic romantic…"

"You thought right," Elisa said with a grateful smile. "Thank you, Angela; now I've got another good reason to wish it was summer again already!"

Dana and Maggie had gone in together on their gift for Elisa, probably with a little financial assistance from either Fox or Diane (unless they'd scrounged and turned in for money a LOT of soda cans); a Polaroid camera and two packs of film. "So you can take pictures of your fellow without worrying about a developer asking questions," Maggie explained with a smile. "We use one for special occasions down in the Labyrinth."

"I've been wanting to get one for us to use in the castle, too," Angela put in a bit wistfully. "It's not as personal as doing portraits or sketches, but it's **_so_** much faster, and you don't have to get them to hold still for a long time…"

"Well, why didn't you say so earlier?" Fox said in mild surprise. "We can pick one up later, so you can use it at Thanksgiving if you like. But for now… come on, Elisa, quit stalling…" as she gestured to the larger of the last two gifts on the table, with a gift tag that had a quick sketch of a fox's head in the 'From' section.

Elisa gave her a raised eyebrow as she retorted, "Considering your idea of _munchies_ for this party, I'm afraid to open it with company present!"

Fox raised a shocked hand to her bosom as she gasped. "Elisa, you wound me! I'm just shattered!" But the effect was somewhat spoiled by both her Andorian disguise, and the wicked grin she utterly failed to smother.

The box was actually fairly heavy when she hefted it experimentally, so she doubted it was simply some utterly scandalous lingerie. She cautiously unwrapped it and pried the lid off, and blinked at what she found inside. A stack of bedsheet sets! She began lifting them out, as there was more than one packaged set inside. Some sets were of satin, in red, sapphire blue, and black, but they were interspersed with ordinary ones of percale cotton in the usual pastel colors. Well, the satin was a little risqué but not so much she was apt to die from embarrassment, and all in all it was actually a very thoughtful gift; Goliath had already inadvertently ruined a set of sheets by poking holes in them with his talons. "Thank you, Fox!" Elisa said, just before she pulled out the sixth set, another one of cotton percale… then sucked in a breath, and hurriedly put it back in the box. Because underneath the sixth set was, instead of a seventh set of sheets, a book bound in leather with gold letters imprinted in the cover: _The New Joy of Sex--Deluxe_ _Expanded_ _Edition_. She shot Fox a dirty look, but when the hostess smirked back she couldn't quite repress a smirk of her own. It was too bad that the book likely wouldn't have a section on lovemaking with gargoyles, but Goliath could probably write that section himself if he was ever so inclined…

That left only one box, a flat one wrapped in silver paper that didn't have a gift tag on it. Elisa unwrapped it and lifted the lid, gaped open-mouthed at what was revealed, then shot another killer glare at Fox. "You…!"

But Fox just shook her head, her own eyes wide. "That's not from me, Elisa. But I'd like to know where _whoever _it's from found it!"

Elisa plucked the item out of the box, and held up the LARGEST pair of steel handcuffs anyone had ever seen (and thoughtfully lined with velvet, too!) while glaring at everybody and saying, "All right, who's this from?" But everybody else was too busy either gaping like idiots or laughing hysterically to answer her…

Just then, the comedienne who'd been on stage entertaining the crowd with ribald jokes and commentary about her own sex life and the joys of living in New York took her final bow and walked off stage, as the club's emcee came on. "Let's have another round of applause for Doris, folks!" And once the applause started to die down, she continued with a grin, "And now, what you've all been waiting for, the evening's main entertainment; HunkaMania's all-male revue! And to begin our show, put your hands together for Billy!"

Amid an even greater round of applause, whistles and cheers, the emcee left the darkened stage. A wide screen lit up, showing a panoramic blue sky, fields of wheat, and a barn silo in the background. A golden spotlight illuminated a hunky guy with sun-bleached blond hair and a white, even, All-American smile that belonged on a Colgate commercial. The hunk was wearing a red flannel shirt, jeans so snug he must have been sewn into them, and cowboy boots. He had a piece of straw sticking out of his mouth like a cigarette.

Billy started strutting his stuff to Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA," flashing his brilliant grin at the audience. He wiggled out of his shirt, whirled it overhead, and flung it offstage. Next he ripped off the jeans, the seams somehow parting right down the sides, revealing a pair of stars-and-stripes briefs.

Women in the audience were cheering and clapping, and many were waving bills in the air. "What are they doing?" Angela asked.

"Watch!" Fox said. Billy stripped off the briefs, eliciting a sudden startled gasp from Maggie, but modesty was barely preserved by a peach-colored thong. He sprang from the stage and gyrated between the tables, close to the women with the money. Eager hands reached to stuff the bills into the thin elastic bands.

Dana was grinning from ear to ear as she pulled off one of her shoes, dug into its toe area and pulled out a worn and crumpled dollar bill. But Fox held up a hand to forestall her, as she dug into a pocket on her Andorian costume and pulled out a huge wad of one-dollar bills. She threw them on the table with a wide grin, saying, "Here's enough for everybody, on me!"

Dana grinned even wider as she signed a quick thank-you to Fox, stuffed her dollar bill back into her shoe, grabbed one from the table and stood up waving it in the air. Billy grinned wide at the table of costumed ladies and danced their way, and soon Dana was placing the dollar bill flat against Billy's well-muscled chest and sliding it slowly down to tuck into his waistband. Then she sat back down in her chair smiling like the cat that had stolen the cream as Billy began dancing away again, while Maggie just gaped at her open-mouthed.

"I want to try that!" Angela announced, as she grabbed a dollar bill from the table and began waving it in the air. Either not hearing or utterly ignoring Elisa's frantic hisses about avoiding attracting attention to herself, she faced Billy with a wide, fang-showing smile as he smoothly gyrated his way to her side. He didn't even blink at the fangs, but swung one of those snake-hips towards her invitingly. She stuffed the dollar bill into his G-string, then quickly and daringly squeezed his left buttock before collapsing back into her chair, screaming with giggles. Billy quickly danced away and waggled his finger at her to indicate groping like that was a no-no, but he was still grinning.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the castle, the bachelor party was still going strong; _Deep Space 69_ was showing on-screen, though not everyone was watching the porn movies quite so avidly anymore. That was because Brooklyn had challenged Matt Bluestone to a game of darts, which they were playing whenever the action on-screen slowed down, Jeffrey had persuaded Goliath to try another game of chess (after offering to spot him two pawns and a rook) and Claw had passed out facedown on top of the pool table.

The darts game was not going all that well, because after imbibing so many mixed drinks between them, both Matt and Brooklyn were having just a _leetle_ trouble with hand-eye coordination. After five rounds of darts, they had managed to hit the board seven times between them, while the wall around the board was riddled with pockmarks, the moose head hanging on the wall to the left of the board had a dart tip still embedded in an antler and the bear's head hanging on the other side had a ragged ear from a direct hit.

Now that all the food was gone, Broadway was watching the screen just as avidly as his rookery brother Lexington, with one hand occupied in holding another fruity drink while the other was trying to cover the bulge in his loincloth. The man disguised as an alien on-screen was currently making the woman he'd captured demonstrate her amazing mouth capacity, as well as her apparent total lack of a gag reflex, and Broadway groaned aloud as he dropped his mixed drink and covered his crotch with both hands. Lexington murmured sympathetically, "Yeah, don't you wish that would happen to you?"

"Ohhh, you can't imagine how good it _really_ is until you've actually done it!" Broadway groaned back, as the tent under his hands grew even more. "When Angela did that to me… God, sometimes I can still _feel_ her lips and tongue on…"

Lexington dropped his fresh Vulcan Mind Meld in shock, as he stared at his rookery brother and blurted out, "**_Angela's given you a blow job_**!"

And of course, that pronouncement dropped right into one of the lulls in noise, and instantly everyone went dead silent. Everyone except Goliath, that is; a low growl rumbled forth from his massive chest as he turned around in his seat to stare at Broadway. Then he got out of his seat and began advancing towards him, swaying slightly but as inexorable as an avalanche, as he growled, "_**What** have you been doing with my daughter_!"

"I-it wasn't really her, I mean it wasn't really me, it wasn't really either of us!" Broadway babbled as he fell out of his seat and scrambled to all fours, half-crawling backwards away from the approaching behemoth. "W-we couldn't control ourselves, it was Coldstone and his mate that… _Don't kill me_!"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Far, far below the ensuing ruckus, deep in the bowels of the Aerie Building, two members of the former Pack were settling in to wait. "Not only will this be the easiest money we've made all year," Hyena gloated as she rubbed her hands together, "But the most fun, to boot!"

"I'm not so sure about the easiest," Jackal grumbled, examining his cybernetic claws, some of which were looking somewhat damaged. "I've dulled all my claws digging us through the basement walls into this building; it's going to take hours to sharpen them to where they'll be useful again!"

"Well, mine are still plenty sharp," as Hyena flashed her own claws, gleaming in the dim light provided by Jackal's shoulder-mounted lights. "And you'll have plenty of time to work on yours, since we've got hours to wait until morning." She almost affectionately patted the platform they were sitting on, which was the ceiling of an elevator cab. "And once it's dawn, we just ride this up to the castle along with the first passenger…"

"Break out as soon as we reach the top, and make our way to the roof," Jackal finished with a grin. "They won't be expecting a sudden attack from _within_ the castle, and by the time Security musters a response we'll be on the rooftop already, collecting stone gargoyle heads…"

"With just a short detour or two along the way," Hyena purred sweetly, flashing her claws again. "The Quarryman boss did say that Xanatos himself is fair game. And wouldn't it just be an awful shame if his loving wifey, _that bitch who betrayed us_, happens to get in the way…" After contemplating that thought for a few moments, Hyena looked longingly up the incredibly long elevator shaft and muttered half to herself, "Hell with it, let's get up there and start cutting now! Bleeding flesh is a lot more _fun_ to rip apart than stone…"

Jackal cocked the eyebrow of his living eye at her as he chided, "Patience, dear sister. We spent nearly all our cash on repairs for your systems after I broke you out of prison, while everyone was recovering from that incredibly fortuitous Big Sleep last summer. Let's not waste more of the money we'll be getting from this caper on repairs from the damage those gargoyles would inflict upon us, when they're wide awake and ready for battle. I, for one, have a long vacation and another sensory upgrade planned for my share…."

Their plans might have changed slightly had they known that the gargoyles in the castle were, at the moment, definitely not battle-ready. It had only taken four people to hold Goliath back from beating Broadway to a pulp while he explained about what had happened when Coldstone and Coldfire had possessed his and Angela's bodies, instead of the normal five or six. (It might have taken fewer than that, except those trying to wrestle Goliath to a standstill apparently had trouble figuring out which limbs were his and which were the other helpers'; at least, that was what Talon had said afterwards, while trying to explain why he'd nearly tied Hudson's tail into a knot.) But as the parties above and below were oblivious to each other, the cyborgs waited impatiently while the gargoyles and guests rocked on…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the nightclub, a variety of strippers had strutted their stuff on-stage and amidst the audience, and the pile of dollar bills on the table at the bachelorette party had grown considerably smaller. Even Diane had tipped a dancer (utterly ignoring the horrified gasps from her daughters), an athletically inclined black man named Rodney who had danced vigorously to the _Axel F_ theme from the _Beverly Hills Cop_ soundtrack. After she'd calmly explained to a dumfounded Beth and Elisa, "Just because I'm on a strict diet, doesn't mean I can't occasionally peruse the menu…" the two sisters had started grabbing bills for tipping as well.

Angela had decided some time ago that if she was dressed up to be a vampire, then she should drink like one too, and had therefore switched from New York Lemonades to Bloody Mary's. After she'd imbibed a couple of those, Fox had suggested she switch to Bloody Bulls, which had beef bouillon mixed in with the tomato juice, and these proved to be a real hit with the somewhat carnivorous lady; she'd already ordered and drained four of them, while giggling and waving bills at the strippers. Elisa knew that the tomato-juice-based drinks actually had less alcohol than the ones the gargess had been imbibing earlier, but she had no doubt at all that Angela, while not utterly plastered yet, was far, far away from sober.

Up until that point Maggie, the only wholly sober person in the group and definitely the most shy of them all, had steadfastly refused to touch a dollar. But now the emcee announced, "Ladies, put your hands together for… Felix!" The panoramic screen behind the stage flickered on again, to show a panoramic, larger-than-life view of a typical New York alley with a fence at the far end, with silhouettes of cats showing here and there against the midnight-blue sky. And as the pulsing, saucy beat of The Stray Cats' "Stray Cat Strut" came out of the hidden speakers, a character who could have come straight out of the musical "Cats" came sauntering onstage.

Elisa had gone to see "Cats" once, out of loyalty to felines in general and her pet Cagney in particular, and she was pretty sure that Felix's costume was loosely based on Munkustrap, the tabby-striped tomcat who had narrated/sang so much of the musical. Not that this fellow's costume was at all loose, oh no; it clung to his sleek body like it really was his own fur as he sauntered and leaped and spun across the stage. And when his dancing brought him close to the bachelorette party's table and his eyes lit upon Maggie staring back at him, they could see his eyes light up even through the feline mask coving the upper part of his face as he danced a little closer, to the very edge of the stage. Close enough that, even through the cheers and whistles from the appreciative audience, they could hear him give her a low, suggestive growl.

Beth, Fox, Dana and Angela all immediately began pushing dollar bills from the vanishing pile towards Maggie, chorusing gleefully, "Dare you! Dare you!" as Felix danced back across the stage, spinning and leaping and spreading a little of his rampant sexiness to all the ladies present. Then he began skinning himself, his costume coming off in sections; first the furry gloves and then the sleeves and leggings, until he was in a tight fur leotard that still clearly delineated his pecs, abs and the well-proportioned bulge at his crotch. Then he ripped even that off, to dance clad only in his cat-faced mask and a tabby-striped thong, that still had the tail attached in the back!

By now his athletic and sensuous dancing had at least half of the audience on their feet, and a forest of dollar bills waving in the air. He leaped off the stage and into their midst, accepting dollar bills in his G-string with a Cheshire Cat's grin, but unmistakably dancing his way towards the party's table. By now Elisa was chanting along with the others, "Dare you! Dare you!" and even Diane was nudging a dollar bill towards her daughter-in-law, saying, "Go on, dear, you know you want to, just this once!"

Unable to stand it any longer, Maggie grabbed a fistful of dollars and jumped to her feet, waving one of them in the air. For an instant Felix seemed to falter as he saw Maggie standing up and the slight but unmistakable bulge indicating pregnancy, but moments later he was dancing even more wildly in their direction.

He swayed and gyrated around Maggie, giving her that same sultry growl, and she playfully growled right back as she teasingly slid dollar bill after dollar bill down his front, sides and back to tuck them into the waistband of his thong. Then he leaned in close to whisper quickly to her, as his tail somehow flicked around her hips; after a startled moment, Elisa concluded that it must have a flexible artificial 'skeleton' and servomotors inside, like the tail on her deluxe gargoyle costume. Then he leaped and danced away, to accept tips from other ladies, while Maggie sat slowly down in her seat.

Diane noticed the stunned look on Maggie's face, and smiled at her reassuringly. "Don't worry, dear; we'll never breathe a word of this to Derek… We ladies have to have _some_ secrets!"

"I-it's not that," Maggie said in a low voice, still a little dazed. "F-Felix, he…"

"I heard him whisper something to you," Beth said eagerly, giving her a sisterly nudge. "Come on, what'd he say?"

"He said… 'Congratulations; he's a lucky tom.' And then he… caressed me with his tail…"

"Yeah, I noticed that," Elisa said with a lascivious waggle of her eyebrows. "He must have a pretty sophisticated servo setup inside that tail, to control it like that."

Maggie stared at her. "Elisa, I used to _have_ a tail, and I know how they work and how they feel. That wasn't being operated by any machine… and it felt _warm_…"

As that information sank in, every set of eyes at the table turned as one to look for Felix, but by then he'd already danced his way out of the room.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the castle, Goliath had settled down again to continue losing at chess with Jeffrey and everyone else had settled own as well, to drink or chuck darts or watch the movie. Lexington had taken Brooklyn's place at the darts game, while Brooklyn went back to the bar for another drink. And another, and another, until he spun around to face the others, went too far and stumbled against the bar to sprawl across the floor. Still lying there, he lifted his head to blearily glare in Goliath's direction and point a talon at him as he said hoarsely, "Thish ish all your brother's fault!"

Goliath blinked at him as he said very intelligently, "Huh?"

"Your r(hic)ery brother, Col'shtone! 'S all hiz fault, hiz 'n' Coldbyre! Or Bonfire, or whatever her name is. When he an' she got to playing around in Broadface 'n' Angie's bodies, they musta bonded them t'gether!"

"Nooo, they didn't," Lexington said unsteadily as he turned away from the darts game to correct his rookery brother. "If they had, we woulda smelled the difference in 'em. 'Cause the nose always knows," he added sagely as he laid a finger alongside his nose, but forgot he was holding a dart at the time and almost poked his eye out with it.

"But they musta, 'cause 'fore that Angela was lookin' at _me_ for her mate, I know she was!" Brooklyn insisted, as he unsteadily got to his feet and began stalking/staggering in Broadway's direction. "**_I_** don't gotta lose any weight to catch her; I could fly her with one wing tied down! An' I'm the sec(hic) second-in-command, an' I'm smarter than you, an'… an' I even got a bigger dick! See?" as he ripped his belt off and let his loincloth drop, to let it all hang out.

Xanatos let loose a long, silent whistle. Matt's eyes bugged out for a moment, before he looked away with an almost sullen expression. MacBeth noticed his red-haired companion's current state and laid an unsteady yet sympathetic hand on his shoulder, to say with blurred sympathy, "I know how y'feel, lad; th' clan back at Moray went about naked durin' their Breeding Moon. An' all of us men in th' castle got so horrible envious of 'em that we stayed indoors at night till t'was over, an' made bloody sure all th' ladies did too. Y' just have to remember, 'tis how ye _use_ it that matters…"

Oblivious to the humans' discussion, Brooklyn finally stood in front of Broadway in all his drunken crimson glory and demanded, "Whaddayou got that I ain't got!"

Broadway belched right in his face, and said with supreme confidence, "**_I_** can cook."

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the nightclub, the ladies had all settled back to normal (or what passed for normal, in their various stages of drunkenness), and another stripper was onstage and strutting his stuff to the throbbing beat of Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love".

Maggie had, in the course of the night, had a Safe Sex on the Beach, a Kiddie Cocktail, an Alice Cocktail and a Rose de Mai Cocktail, a Lassie-Sweet, a Cool Cow, Black Cow and Brown Cow and an Orange Flamingo, and was finally, after repeated playful needling by Dana and Beth, agreeing to try a Pussyfoot. Elisa herself had tried a few of those nonalcoholic drinks, in between a variety of margaritas and daiquiris, and so had her mother; it was surprising how many different nonalcoholic concoctions were available in a really high-quality bar with good bartenders. Angela had tried a Virgin Mary, but had immediately gone back to her Bloody Bulls.

Over the course of the night, various scantily-clad masseurs had come around to their table, offering to give the ladies back rubs for nominal fees, all of which went on Fox's bar tab. Fox had been the first to indulge, almost purring with sensuous delight as a fellow named Alberto went to work on her back and shoulders. Beth had gone for the sensuous treat next, and was followed eventually by her mother, but in a low-voiced conversation at the party's start everyone had agreed that Maggie and Angela would have to refuse all such offers; anyone laying hands on their backs would realize in short order that those "cloaks" the ladies were wearing were living wings. Dana had reluctantly decided she would refuse the treat as well, as a massage would be likely muss and ruin the beautifully feathered back and shoulders of her costume.

Elisa had finally loosened up enough to allow herself to indulge in a massage, and had to admit that it felt _awfully_ good as a hunky guy named Andrew worked on her back and shoulders. Andrew was built like a cross between a bear and a bodybuilder, big and burly and hairy as can be, but his hands were gentle and soothing, pressing just hard enough to work out kinks that Elisa hadn't even known were there. His eyes twinkled behind his wire-rimmed glasses as he heard Elisa unconsciously groaning with satisfaction, and even more when he caught her involuntary whimper of protest as he finished up and backed away.

And just then Angela piped up wistfully, "I really want one of those… It felt so **_good_**, the last time my back was rubbed..."

Ooohh, yeah, Elisa could just _bet_ it had felt good, considering that one of a gargoyle's major erogenous zones was around the wing-joints! Her eyes snapped open and every muscle that had just been gloriously loosened instantly tensed up again, as exactly what she'd feared would happen, happened: Andrew was heading for Angela's chair with a slow smile showing through his beard, saying, "More than happy to oblige you, dear lady…"

Despite her own somewhat drunken state, Fox was also instantly on the alert, eyes wide as Elisa could see her frantically sorting through options in her mind, in the same way Elisa herself was. What to do? They'd never thought of an excuse for her not to have one that would sound reasonable to normal people, and if they just flat-out refused to let Angela be massaged, the gargess was probably just drunk enough to forget herself and throw a tantrum about it. And even if they got the masseur to back off there was a real good chance that someone would notice Angela's eyes glowing red in anger; no mere costume could do that…

Then the quick thinking and killer reflexes that had made Fox the leader of the Pack came into play; she shoved her chair back and got to her feet just as Andrew went past her, saying loudly, "Who's gotta go with me to the bathroom?" And without waiting for an answer, she turned and purposefully stumbled right into Andrew's path, and managed to catch him off-balance and drag him down with her to the ground. He tried to graciously free himself from the tangle, but Fox gave a girlish giggle as she managed to squirm on top of him, still making it seem like the drunken fumblings of a hopelessly plastered female. "Oooh, you're so big and manly!" she cooed down into his face, as he was clearly trying to think of a way to foist her off without offending the _very_ well-paying customer. "Ever been kissed by an Andorian warrior? We're a (hic) very passionate people, y'know…"

"(Ahem) Does somebody here need a hand up again?" a waiter said politely, as he appeared as if by magic next to the Fox-Andrew tangle; no doubt all the waiters stayed on alert to step in as needed and keep anyone from getting too rowdy, without drawing the official attention of the bouncers. Giggling all the while, Fox let herself be helped back to her feet and pointed in the direction of the restrooms, and by the time Andrew got to his feet as well Elisa had already leaned across the table and hissed to Angela that she'd better change her mind about that massage, if she wanted this party to continue. The killer glare in her stepmother-to-be's eyes sobered Angela up enough to remember herself and her situation, and she just gave Andrew a smile and a wave-off when he approached her again.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the castle, the partygoers had persuaded Brooklyn to sit down and quit making a fool of himself, so they could finish watching _Deep Space 69._ The flick had just finished screening when Xanatos tried to rouse Claw, still passed out on top of the pool table, with a few light taps to his shoulder. Unfortunately, his attempt backfired when, without fully waking up, Claw rolled over enough to reach out with one massive clawed hand and scoop Xanatos off his feet, and cuddled the startled billionaire to his furry chest like an oversized teddy bear as what was unmistakably a rough purring issued forth. Matt and Talon saw it first, and just about fell out of their chairs laughing. Once the others found out what was so funny, Brooklyn forgot all about sulking and really did fall out of his chair laughing, and even Goliath fell to chuckling evilly at the billionaire's plight. "Oh God, why didn't I bring the camera?" Talon wheezed and sputtered, tears of laughter streaming out of his eyes.

Owen efficiently came over with a vial of smelling salts, and uncapped it roughly a foot away from Claw's muzzle. That was close enough for working on a mutate; he jerked and snorted himself awake, while Xanatos swiftly extricated himself from Claw's grasp and tried fruitlessly to straighten his rumpled clothing. "(Ahem) Now that I have everybody's attention… It's time for the highlight of tonight's entertainment!"

"You mean that wasn't it?" Brooklyn gasped, still holding his sides in pain from laughing so hard. "Oh man, Elisa's going to just _kick_ herself when she finds out what she missed…"

Xanatos gave him an extremely dirty look before turning towards the paneled wall decorated with hunting scenes and trophies. He reached up and into the bear's gaping jaws… and the gargoyles heard a faint -_click_- and whirring of nearly silent gears, as a portion of the wall revealed itself to be a hidden door. The section of paneling swung inwards, to reveal another room with a darkened interior. (A hidden room in Xanatos' own private den? Goliath snorted as he shook his head, thinking that the depths of the man's deviousness were truly beyond comprehension.) Oblivious to the clan leader's thoughts, Xanatos gave one of his famous smirks as he said, "This way, gentlemen and gentlegargs…"

The room was dimly lit by human standards, though the gargoyles thought it was just fine, and its furniture consisted mostly of a sturdy oak table and a row of equally sturdy yet comfortable chairs, all with holes conveniently cut in the back for those with tails. A large circular platform covered with an even larger dropcloth (a bed? It appeared to have pillows on it, under the dropcloth) was at one end of the room; at the other end, which all the chairs had been turned to face, the wall was completely covered by a set of large velvet curtains.

MacBeth noticed the lack of a bar in the second room and glanced wistfully back towards the room they'd come from, wondering if he had time enough to get another drink or two before the action started; another problem with that blasted spell that linked him to Demona is that the healing factor built into it made it hard to maintain a proper drunken state. He noticed absently that the wall between the rooms had a series of teeny-weeny windows set in pairs, probably corresponding to the eyes of a few of the stuffed animal heads mounted as trophies, before focusing his attention on what Owen was bringing in.

The majordomo was pushing before him a small cart stocked with suitable libations from the bar, and a series of slim leather wallets piled on a tray. He began efficiently distributing both drinks and wallets to all the guests, and Broadway curiously opened up the wallet handed to him to pull out a few twenty-dollar bills. "What's this for?"

"You'll find out soon," Matt said with a leering grin, rubbing his hands briskly in anticipation. He and Xanatos together prodded Goliath into taking the center seat of the chairs facing the curtains.

"Hey, must be some pretty hot ladies waiting in the wings, to merit twenties instead of ones," Talon whispered eagerly to a still somewhat unsteady Claw as they took their seats. Then again, he reflected wryly to himself, it might just be that Xanatos never carried anything smaller than twenties in his own wallet…

Once everyone was seated, Xanatos announced, "And now, may I present: Sugar and Spice!"

The velvet curtains began to slowly draw back, while hidden speakers began to drive out a pulsing, jazzy beat that the human and former-human members of the audience tentatively recognized the Eurhythmic's 'Sweet Dreams', though it was actually an extended remix version of it. And the curtains swept back as hidden spotlights came on, revealing… a pair of figures, both wrapped completely in gargoyle wings. Goliath gasped aloud in shock, while the Trio hooted and cheered in anticipation.

Annie Lennox's voice came through the hidden speakers, and as she sang throatily,

"_Sweet Dreams are made of these_…" The figure on the left unwrapped golden-tan wings to reveal a buxom golden gargess with a long, flowing silver-white mane. She was clad in what appeared to be a harem girl's outfit; a sapphire blue and extremely scant bikini top layered over by gauzy blue veils and equally gauzy pantaloons over an equally scanty bikini bottom. She was adorned with a silver coin belt, silver anklets and armbands, a large jewel flashed at where a human's navel would be, and even her claws and toe-talons were dipped in silver. She gave the breathless audience a slow, sweet smile.

"_Who am I to disagree_…" The second pair of wings, dark brown in color, opened to reveal an equally buxom chocolate-colored gargess. Her mane was a riot of black satin curls cascading down around her shoulders, her harem outfit was done in a vivid crimson topped with golden jewelry, and her smile was even more wicked.

"_Travel the world and the seven seas_," Annie Lennox sang as the gargesses began to move in perfect rhythm, hips and tails swaying sensuously as they began to dance. "_Everybody's looking for something_…"

"_Some of them want to use you_," as 'Sugar' removed a blue layer of veil with a flick of her wrist, and tossed it into the audience, to float gently down onto Goliath's head and drape over the point of his left ear. The lavender giant was still sitting there in his chair, looking as stunned as if he'd been whopped upside the head with a two-by-four, and both Matt and Xanatos had to fight hard to keep from snickering at his expression.

"_Some of them want to get used by you_," as 'Spice' removed one of her scarlet veils and targeted Goliath with it as well. It ended up draped over his right wing-talon, which clenched on it seemingly of its own volition.

"_Some of them want to abuse you_," as the dancers swayed and gyrated, every movement screaming of their raw sensuality; their hands moved over their bodies, making gestures of offering before they spun away tauntingly. "_Some of them want to be abused_…"

By the time some part of Goliath's brain realized that the two gargesses in front of him were actually humans clad in the super-deluxe-edition, roboticized costumes Xanatos had created for last Halloween, the rest of him was too far gone to care. Nor was he the only one affected; even those who had known all along were being drawn into the ladies' spell, an enchantment woven of throbbing rhythms, swaying limbs, cast-off veils and pure, primeval sexuality. Virtually every eye in the room was mesmerized, staring at the dancers as if they'd forgotten how to blink, tails were twitching wildly and thumping against the floor, and gaping mouths began to drool slightly with sheer, raw lust. And by the time Sugar and Spice had cast off all their veils and were down to their jewelry and bikini tops and bottoms, more than one set of trousers or loincloth began to indicate a developing 'pre-dick-ament'.

Then the two dancers simultaneously leaped from the stage, to land right at Goliath's feet. On his right, Matt hissed to him, "Get out the tips!" while illustrating by holding up one of the twenty-dollar bills from the wallet he'd been given, and waving it invitingly towards the ladies.

But the dancers ignored Matt for the moment, focusing all their attention and considerable charms on the guest of honor. Spice circled behind Goliath's chair and leaned over him, draping his head with her breasts and playing with his pointed ears, while Sugar straddled his legs with hers, wrapped her tail around his ankles and leaned forward invitingly, her bosom only inches from his face. They might have been wearing costumes, but they _looked_ like real gargoyle skins, and Sugar's tail around his ankles and what Spice was doing behind him sure _felt_ real, and even Goliath's tail twitched uncontrollably as his own loincloth began to swell.

"The tips!" Matt hissed again, and this time Goliath got the clue. He'd utterly forgotten the wallet he'd been at first holding loosely in one hand, then squeezing tightly as the dancing went on, but now he managed to fumble it open and produced a thoroughly crumpled bill. Sugar grinned, showing expertly-done fangs, and leaned in even closer as she took a deep breath, making her already impressive bosom swell even further; Goliath swallowed hard as he took the hint, and quickly stuffed the bill down her cleavage.

Sugar smiled wider, and showed her approval by leaning forward a little further to rub her breasts against Goliath's chest while growling softly in his ear. Then in a flash she backed away to circle behind him, while Spice came around to the front. She sat directly on Goliath's lap and wriggled delightfully on the swell in his loincloth, while running her talons tantalizingly down one of his swelling biceps (and interestingly, both areas swelled even larger), and wordlessly coaxed him into sliding another of those bills into the strings of her bikini bottoms.

After a few more rounds of tag-teaming Goliath, and coaxing him out of two more of his bills, the dancers split up and began working the crowd. Sugar went right and graced Matt with an eye-popping view of her cleavage, inviting him to stuff one of his twenties down it and to boldly cop a feel along the way. Spice went left, draping herself supine over Brooklyn's knees and smiling up into his wide eyes and gaping beak, as his tail drummed wildly against the floor behind his chair. Then she sat up to lap-dance on his loincloth until he adorned her G-string with a twenty, and thanked him with a kiss to the side of his beak (at which his tail thwacked against his chair so hard it cracked the wood) before leaping off to begin stalking her next victim.

Each male in the audience received favorable treatment, and dispensed their treats in return. Xanatos smiled proudly as he saw how Sugar had Lexington limp in his chair (except for one crucial portion of his anatomy) and whimpering helplessly as she sauntered away with a flick of her tail and most of his bills, while Spice had Hudson grinning from ear to ear and stuffing bills down her cleavage while she sat in his lap, purring and combing her talons through his beard. And while Jeffrey had been somewhat left out of the fun of watching the porno flicks, here the dancers let him freely grope as he stuffed bills here and there, only playfully slapping his hand away when he got just a little too enthusiastic about ensuring the bills were firmly in place. Xanatos reflected that this party was worth every dollar he'd spent on it and more, and it wasn't quite over yet…

By the time Sugar and Spice had both completed their circuits of the room and leaped back onto the stage, their blue and red string bikinis were stuffed with greens, and everybody in the audience had flat wallets and foolish grins on their faces. The music reached a crescendo as the curtains began to draw closed again, and the dancers spun behind the velvet as it swept across the stage… only to stop before completely closing. And barely a second after they'd stopped, golden and chocolate-brown hands flashed into the gap, holding red and blue bikini tops. They dangled them meaningfully for a moment before tossing them out into the crowd, as every male throat erupted in howls, whistles and roars of appreciation. The red bikini top landed on Claw's right arm as he gaped at it disbelievingly, while the blue one landed squarely on Jeffrey's head, to be gently taken off and sniffed at in wonder. Then came the bikini bottoms; the red one hooked on the tip of Brooklyn's beak as he howled at the ceiling, and Broadway moved with surprising speed for his bulk to deftly snag the blue one out of the air before Talon could grab it.

Then the curtains swung back open, and the ladies were dancing again! They used their wings like the exotic dancers of old used to use giant ostrich-feather fans in their act, folding them across their bodies to artfully conceal and reveal; teasing and tantalizing the audience anew. And just as the music reached a fever pitch, the two stopped and stood to face the audience while wrapped in their wings, then opened their wings wide… just as the lights cut out, plunging the stage into darkness.

There was a moment of silence, followed by thunderous applause, cheers, roars and whistles. Owen turned on the main lights as the curtains swept across the stage again, and Talon asked for Claw as the mute mutate held up the red bikini top, "Can he keep that?" Jeffrey was already quietly stuffing his trophy into a pocket, while Lexington warned Broadway that if Angela caught him with that blue bikini bottom, his life wouldn't be worth gravel… Goliath was already tucking his red and blue veil trophies into his belt pouch; then he paused as he thought of Elisa's possible reaction if she found them on him, and finally sighed gustily and left them draped across his chair.

Xanatos urged everybody to go back out into the main room again, to continue the party. "More food and drink is on the way, and I've been saving the best films for last as well; prepare yourselves for _Black Velvet Magic_ and _Sex Trek III: The Search for Ultima_!"

Cheering, the crowd of males surged out of the room, but when Brooklyn got close to the door, his own trophy clutched tight in one taloned hand, Owen discreetly drew him to one side. Brooklyn looked at him questioningly, but Owen said nothing until the rest of the party had gone out; then he said only, "One of the ladies wanted to talk to you specifically," before slipping out and closing the door behind him.

To _him_? Specifically? Brooklyn's throat suddenly went dry as he slowly turned around, to find the two ladies, with light satin robes thrown over their gargoyle costumes, stepping out from behind the curtain and smiling at him. He swallowed hard, then managed to say, "Um… Hi." He suddenly remembered the red bikini bottom clutched in his hand, and hurriedly held it out as he stammered, "You, uh, want this back?"

"No, you can keep it," 'Sugar' said with a smile. "Mr. X is letting us keep the _real_ costumes, along with our tips and all the money he paid up front."

"But we're here for more than just the money we made tonight," 'Spice' said as she came even closer to him, with a small smile that seemed much more sincere than the high-kilowattage sexy smile she'd worn during her dancing… which somehow affected him even more strongly. "You see, this isn't the first time some of us at the club have encountered gargoyles..."

"It isn't?" Brooklyn gaped at them both.

"Uh-unh." Sugar reached his side and took one of his hands in hers as she said, "Just two months ago, you and the green gargoyle, Lexington, saved Linda Lee and her boyfriend from being mugged over on 32nd Avenue. Linda wanted to thank you both, but Jerry was such a coward that he turned and ran off with her before she had a chance to say anything."

"And in late March of last year," Spice said, her face and voice serious as she took his other hand in hers, then began running one of her talon-gloved hands up his arm, "you personally saved another woman from being… _gang-raped_ in an alley off of 84th Street. Do you remember her; a black woman wearing a blue pantsuit?"

Brooklyn honestly didn't remember the incident at all; there had been so many crimes averted over the last couple of years, sometimes as many as four in a single patrol, that they all tended to blur together after a while. But he took a wild guess and said tentatively, "That was you?"

"Mm-hmm… But I'm ashamed to admit that, back then, I didn't know that you folks aren't monsters; that's why I screamed and ran instead of thanking you. Because you saved my _life_, Brooklyn; those gangstas were going to _kill_ me after they'd… had their fun with me; I could see it in their eyes."

"Uh, well… I'm just glad I could help, really."

"You folks really are heroes in a crazy way, doing all that you do for us without even getting paid for it," Sugar said with a smile. "But we thought that maybe, just this once, you'd like to have a reward for all your hard work."

And while still running one hand sensuously up and down Brooklyn's arm, Spice put her other hand on Brooklyn's belt and tugged gently as she said with a smile, "A special, personal reward…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back in the other room, the next film was showing on the screen and everybody had settled down with more pizza and drinks in their hands; all thoroughly engrossed in the current antics on-screen, none of the clan had yet to notice Brooklyn's absence. But suddenly Jeffrey, who had been about to call it a night and ask Owen to show him to the elevator, gave a start and jerked his head off to the left. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Owen said blandly.

"I thought I heard… a roaring noise of some sort. It was faint, muffled, but it wasn't coming from the theater speakers; I could have sworn it was coming from over there," as he pointed straight at the wall of trophies.

Owen assured him that he'd heard nothing, but suggested that perhaps there was a problem with the plumbing in the main castle, and if any of the clan heard it again he'd have it checked out in the morning. And as he ushered Jeffrey out of the room and to the elevators, letting the Aerie Building night security people know via intercom that a guest was coming down and would need a taxi ride to get home, he made a note to himself to let Xanatos know that the soundproofing in the private room evidently wasn't quite as thorough as he'd thought.

On the way back to the party, he thought that it wouldn't hurt to make a quick check on Alexander. Although he had every faith in Anne Marsden's ability to deal with the babe in everyday situations; the woman was a marvel with children, and once she'd come to accept the existence of magic, dealt with it and the children's emerging powers as matter-of-factly as anyone in the castle. She really was a treasure, virtually a Godsend… but then, Owen thought privately as a tiny, painfully wry smile tugged unseen at the corner of his mouth, that was to be expected…

But as Owen reached the level of the nursery, he frowned imperceptibly as he heard the sound of a child crying hysterically. But the sound wasn't coming from Alexander's nursery; he followed it to the kitchen, even as the cries faded to soft sobs and hiccups, to find Anne sitting on a stool with her daughter Bethany, rubbing her back to comfort the crying child, while waiting for a small saucepan of milk to heat up. Anne heard him and turned around in dismay, saying, "Oh, dear, could you hear her clear down at the party? I'm so sorry, Owen, but Bethany's having nightmares tonight…"

But Bethany saw Owen, and reached her arms out for him as she began screaming again, "Bad men, Unca Owen! Bad robots! They're mean and shiny and they want to make everybody dead! Bad robots…"

"Bethany, sweetie, shhh, shhh… We're safe here in the castle, honey. Nobody's going to make anybody dead tonight; you're safe here," Anne said soothingly as she tried again to quiet her daughter. "I'm sorry, Owen; she doesn't have nightmares very often, but when she does, they're doozies."

But Owen pulled over another stool, and sat down next to mother and child with a serious frown on his face. "Here, let me have her for a moment." Anne hesitantly handed her over, and once Bethany was sniffling and hiccuping in Owen's lap, he stroked her light blond hair softly with his flesh hand as he whispered, "Dear child… Bethany, tell me everything. Tell me about the bad robots. Where do they come from? And what do they look like?"

Bethany grabbed his tie hard enough to almost strangle him as she babbled earnestly, "They come up from the gwound, an' they're all shiny an' gold an' they got sharp claws an' their arms and legs go all funny an' they're really nasty stinky mean!"

"I see," Owen said softly. "These robots… was one of them a _girl_ robot?"

Bethany nodded emphatically, and said, "But really ugly 'cause she so _mean_!"

Anne looked at the two of them incredulously. "Owen…!"

Owen's face was grave as he turned to face her. "Anne, do you remember what we told you when you first came here, about how Bethany's power of True Sight is occasionally accompanied by the power of prophecy?"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the club, the party had slowed down and become subdued for a short while, as the ladies all realized how close they'd come to having their cover blown. Then another stripper had come on and utterly wowed the crowd with his routine; Lucas had on a tearaway version of the absolute sexiest werewolf costume anyone had ever seen, a lupine version of the "Cats" musical's Rum-Tum-Tugga. He prowled across the stage to the howling rhythms of Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf," his smoldering looks and sinuous movements portraying such raw animal passion that over half the women in the audience came down with flushed faces and heaving bosoms. Including every member of Elisa's party; he somehow managed to make eye contact with every one of them, and silently promise each woman that if she _dared_ to face him alone, she'd have a wild night that she'd relive forever in her wildest, darkest dreams. Even Fox, who had been having a lot of fun teasing and tipping strippers but not apparently been affected by any of them., seemed mesmerized by Lucas' dancing, and when Lucas stripped down to a black leather thong (though without a tail attached), she joined Angela in giving a low growl of appreciation and anticipation, while waving a fistful of bills in the air.

After Lucas had finished his dancing (and collecting so many tips in his thong that they could hardly see his hips anymore) and prowled away, Fox decided that she really did need a bathroom break. Shortly after she'd left, Beth got to her feet, deciding aloud, "I'm for the ladies' too; be back in a few…" Her mother got up to accompany her, but the two of them hadn't gotten more than halfway across the room when all Hell broke loose.

Shots rang out from the entrance to the nightclub, and everyone whipped around to see two men come charging in, past the falling body of the bouncer they'd just shot. The man in the lead was waving a gun around and shouting, "Marge! Marge, you whore, I know you're in here! Show yourself, bitch!" The other man accompanying the shooter carried no visible weapons and did not shout, but the look on his face was one of pure, evil pleasure.

Screams erupted all over the nightclub, as people leaped out of their seats and began stampeding, some nearly crawling over each other to get away from the duo and to the fire exits. The rush of bodies blocked and nearly toppled over Elisa, as she jumped to her feet to confront the duo… and paused in dismay. What the hell was she supposed to do, shout "Freeze! Starfleet Security"! She was too far away to use the Taser on either of the men, which meant she had to get closer to them, going against the crowd… without drawing attention to herself, or the man with the gun would have the drop on her.

Maggie, who had never been a fighter either before or after her mutation and was certainly in no condition to fight at the moment, was scooting under the table and forcibly dragging Dana down under with her. But Angela leaped to her feet, snapped the gold chain binding her wing-talons with a convulsive jerk and ripped her concealing gloves off, as she roared a warrior's challenge across the room. Which was exactly the wrong thing to do, because it attracted the men's attention as the gargess flared her wings and leaped for them… jostled her left wing against an overhead lighting fixture and fell miserably short, the booze in her system affecting both her balance and her judgment. The only thing that saved her from being instantly killed was that the abruptness of her falling flat on her face caused the first bullet fired at her to miss her by a good two feet overhead. But Elisa knew, even as she fought against the panicking crowd to get within Taser range, that the second bullet probably wouldn't miss…

Shooter's first shot might have missed Angela as much from the jolt of surprise at her appearance as from her abrupt fall out of line of fire. And when she fell so abruptly, Shooter evidently thought he'd gotten her after all, because he spent only a second or so staring at her incredulously before turning away and shouting again to the room at large, "Marge! You whoring bitch, you show yourself and get what you deserve!"

But Shooter's Evil Buddy kept an eye on Angela, and when she began struggling to her feet again he snarled something to his pal, words that Elisa couldn't hear but which evidently amounted to something like "The monster's still moving; finish her off." Because Shooter turned and saw her, and took deadly aim…

But he was nearly knocked off his feet by the flying object that hit him in the back, a silver serving tray that had been flung like a discus by Fox. She had emerged from the bathroom just as the chaos had started, and was also fighting to get close enough to use her Taser, but was more than willing to use whatever weapon came to hand in the meantime.

Shooter spun around again to confront whoever had hit him, only to have an open champagne bottle come flying at him from the side, striking a glancing blow and spewing its foamy contents all over him and his buddy. Diane followed suit with the ice bucket that the bottle had been in, missing Shooter as he dodged it but scoring a direct hit on his buddy and throwing him off-balance. Meanwhile, from behind the table she and her mother had overturned for a measure of protection, Beth shouted, "Hey, asshole, over here!" as she thumbed the hidden switch on her wand. And when Shooter looked in their direction, the laser point shot out and scored a direct hit in his eyes.

There's a reason why laser pointers over a certain level of light intensity have been taken off the market and banned from public use; Shooter screamed and jerked away, temporarily blinded, and fired wildly in their direction. A sudden high-pitched scream from the crowd said he'd hit somebody, but Elisa could only pray that the wound wasn't fatal as she continued fighting to get within range.

But Fox's athletic vault over another overturned table while the shooter was blinded had already put her in range, and she aimed her own Taser and fired. Both darts hit Shooter in the torso, and he jerked and screamed like a girl as his body was flooded with 50,000 volts of electricity, before slumping to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

But that's when Evil Buddy scowled at Fox and whipped out a gun of his own; evidently, he'd been happy to let his pal (clearly drunk, and probably incited to attack by repeated needling and plying of beers) do most of the damage while he just sat back and enjoyed the fun, but he was prepared to deal with people who tried to spoil his party. And Fox's Taser would have to be reloaded with a fresh cartridge before it could be used again; she was effectively weaponless… but not helpless, as she flipped back over the overturned table to dodge the first shot fired at her.

And the first shot was the only one Evil Buddy got, because that's when Elisa finally made her way into firing range and fired her Taser at him. E.B. didn't make a sound as he was hit and flooded with 50,000 volts, but his spasmodic jerks before falling to the floor and twitching uncontrollably were still vindictively satisfying to watch.

The room was still rapidly emptying of ladies who either didn't believe the fighting was over or who had just decided that their own evening's fun was definitely _finis_. Fox, Angela, Beth and Diane all gathered together next to the out-of-commission would-be felons and Dana and Maggie came crawling out from under their table to rejoin the party, while Elisa was trying to find something to secure their hands and feet with and privately grumbling that Starfleet really should issue handcuffs to their security personnel.

While still a little groggy and heartily ashamed of her poor performance as a warrior, Angela was still strong enough to grab the silver serving tray that had been used as a discus, rip it in half and twist the pieces into rough metallic strips that she then wrapped around the wrists of both men before the stun effects wore off. The improvised cuffs had plenty of sharp edges that dug cruelly into the men's flesh here at a few points, but as Fox said with vicious satisfaction, "If they start struggling and slash their own wrists open, then that's just too damn bad for them."

Diane said pointedly as she glanced at Angela, Maggie and Dana, "I really don't think that some of us should be here when the police arrive…"

Fox agreed utterly, as she fished out her van keys and tossed them to Maggie. "Maggie, you'll have to drive; you're the only one stone sober and we don't have time to call Aerie Security to drop off a driver for us like I'd planned. Just take the van straight to the Labyrinth, and Angela, you'd better go with them and stay there until you're sober enough to fly home."

Elisa nodded in agreement as well, as she said decisively, "Fox, give Beth your Taser, so we can wipe your prints off it; we can say she fired it, and I don't think anyone will question it in all the confusion we've had in here." They could say Beth had brought the Tasers up from Arizona, where they were legal, and with any luck, Elisa's badge and her family's long history with the force would keep the policemen sure to be arriving soon from booking them for illegal arms use. "The rest of us should be able to leave after paying the tab and giving our statements, and we'll take a cab back to Mom's place and call the castle and the Labyrinth from there. But for now, get going; this party's definitely over…"

Fox grinned wickedly as she winked at Elisa and said, "Yeah, but wasn't it a blast while it lasted?"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the castle, Owen was at his office desk, pulling up files on his computer, while Anne sat nearby with Bethany in her lap. After a moment, he turned the monitor to face them and asked seriously, "Bethany, are these the 'bad robots' from your dream?"

On the screen were side-by-side pictures of Jackal and Hyena, taken by the lab technicians shortly after their "upgrade" to cyborgs. Bethany shuddered and hid her face in her mother's nightshirt, but nodded violently. Anne stared at the screen in shock and revulsion as she said, "Who--_what_--are those!"

" 'What' might indeed be the correct interrogative now," Owen murmured. "These _were_ ordinary humans, who once spent some time pretending to be heroes for a popular television show. This is what they looked like when they starred in 'The Pack'," as he pulled up two more pictures, press releases from Pack Media studios back in 1994.

Anne gave a start of recognition. "Hyena and Jackal! I remember it now; when that show came on, the older kids at Wee Folks Daycare would glue themselves to the screen to watch it; we couldn't pry them away if we waved candy bars under their noses! And they always got so rambunctious after watching the Pack defeat the Evil Ninjas, or whatever the enemy was that week, it would take over an hour to settle them down again…"

Owen nodded. "Unfortunately, the heroic image they projected on the show was a complete sham. These two in particular were, to put it bluntly, bloodthirsty killers who agreed to star in a television show only because it paid more money and more consistently than their more usual line of work, that of mercenaries or assassins for hire."

Anne looked sick. "Bloodthirsty killers for hire? Dear God, and some of the children utterly idolized them… How on earth could Mrs. Xanatos have worked with them for so long?"

Owen decided that just right then was not the right time to let the Xanatos family's well-meaning but somewhat naïve nanny know about her employers' own less-than-savory pasts. Instead, he continued, "When the Pack was disbanded, these two turned to a life of crime, but were apprehended with the help of the gargoyles and put into prison. They broke out once, but another encounter with the gargoyles resulted in their defeat once more. But eventually they were approached by… someone called Coyote, who offered them a chance to become fighters capable of taking on the gargoyles and winning, instead of always being defeated by them. They accepted his offer…"

"And paid for it with what was left of their humanity, by turning halfway into machines," Anne finished for him grimly. "Killing machines…"

"The correct term for their new condition is 'cyborg'," Owen informed her. "And these two have become more cybernetic than organic; every limb has been replaced as well as a few sensory organs, and only their brains and a few internal organs are still human. And they have an undeniable grudge against the clan." He shut down the files, and turned to Bethany again. "Bethany, you said that in your dream, these bad robots came up out of the ground. How did they do that?"

Bethany fretfully clutched her mother's nightshirt again, but replied, "They dug up like Georgey Gopher inna cartoon, an' when they came outta the floor they was laughing really nasty bullies!"

Anne looked horrified as she stared at the floor. "They're coming up through the castle floor!"

"Not necessarily," Owen said almost absently. "Prophetic dreams are not always exact, and they often deal in metaphors, images that Bethany's mind can more easily understand. She has seen this… Georgey Gopher surface from below in that manner in cartoons, so that image may be what her power has seized up on a way to portray these two felons… coming up from below." He drummed his fingers on the desktop for a moment in thought, then got out of his chair. "Follow me to the main security room."

Five minutes later, mother and child were sitting next to Owen in a room crammed with TV monitors and control panels, the heart of the castle's security and defensive/offensive systems, as he cautioned Anne to hold onto Bethany tightly, "…and don't let her touch _anything_, or touch anything yourself."

Anne gave him a raised eyebrow, more than a little miffed by his attitude. "I'm long past my own 'Curious George, poke-and-pickup-and-taste everything in sight' stage, _Mr_. Burnett…"

Owen paused for a moment in his scanning of monitors. "Of course you are; my apologies." He resumed his scanning, then said almost off-handedly, "But do realize that though this particular mortal guise is scarcely two decades old, Puck has seen countless generations of humans make foolish mistakes, often from tampering with forces beyond their control when they really should have known better."

Anne gave him a startled glance as she murmured half to herself, " 'This particular mortal guise'…? How many other identities have you had over the centuries?"

"More than I can easily remember… and this is neither the time nor place to be discussing them. The lowest levels of the castle _appear_ to be clear… Nor does the arboretum show any signs of disturbance. But if Jackal and Hyena were approaching from _outside_ the castle, Bethany's dream would likely have portrayed them flying in for the attack, much like the gargoyles do. The threat must come from within…"

"And you won't be able to use Puck's powers until they attack and Alexander is actually in danger, and by then it might be too late," Anne said grimly.

"Particularly since a Fey's magic has no direct effect against cold iron, and the cyborgs have a fair amount of that metal incorporated into the steel alloys that make up most of their bodies. As Puck, I could use magic against them indirectly, by animating the walls and furniture and such, but…"

"But basically, the defense is up to us mere mortals," Anne said with grim humor. "Shall we go warn the gargoyles, so they're prepared for battle?"

Even a normally emotionless exterior can show occasional cracks; Owen briefly rolled his eyes before shaking his head emphatically. "Not until we have a better idea of our opponents' plans and how to defeat them. I regret to inform you that every last man and gargoyle at the party is currently hopelessly drunk, including our employer. If we go in there and announce a threat to the castle, without a clear idea of what quarter the threat is coming from and any firm plan for them to follow… the resultant chaos could do more damage than even Hyena and Jackal are capable of."

Anne winced. "Ouch. Got it… So it's really down to just us hired help, huh?"

Owen nodded. "Precisely. I'll check with Building Security in the lobby, and see if they've noticed anything at all out of the ordinary in the last few hours…"

While he called the lobby, Anne took a firmer grip on her squirming daughter, who had a child's usual short attention span and was getting bored just sitting there and looking at TV's that weren't showing cartoons or anything interesting. Bethany squirmed harder and protested, "Want to get down!"

"No, sweetie, this isn't a room to exploring in. No, you can't get down… Down…" Anne repeated to herself, then looked sharply at Owen. "Owen, do you remember that action movie where somebody sneaked up a building's elevator shaft to get the drop on the people holding hostages upstairs?"

"Not specifically, but the concept is familiar," Owen said with what might possibly have been a trace of excitement in his voice as he set down the lobby phone and turned back to the monitors. It took only a moment to access the small security cameras that were installed in each of the building's elevator cabs. They all showed nothing, so he then activated the audio pickups for each elevator cab. At first their ears were assaulted with the soft but sprightly and almost sickeningly sweet _musak_ that was virtually required for elevators in large office buildings. Then Owen found and turned on the preset filters, designed specifically to filter out their elevator music in surveillance situations, and the sound of violins and tinkling piano keys faded abruptly to silence.

For the next minute or so, they heard nothing. Then they heard, ever-so-faintly, a human voice; a female… Owen turned the audio gain up to maximum and they heard the voice say peevishly, "…going to go stark raving bonkers in another five seconds! Come on, it'll just take one swipe of my claws, and they'll probably thank me for doing it before we kill 'em!"

"And don't you suppose that their security personnel just might have alarms inside the elevator cabs, and would notice damage being done to the sound system inside their elevator?" another voice, a male, asked sardonically. "Patience, dear sister; according to our timetable, dawn should be in only another four hours. In the meantime, just think of it as theme music for smashing statues by…"

"Oh, shit," Anne swore softly with her eyes wide with horror, forgetting for the moment her daughter's tender ears. "They're really there… on top of the elevator cab…"

"In Shaft #5, the express to the castle," Owen noted grimly. "But waiting for dawn to launch their assault, which gives us a little time to prepare a defense, or counterattack…"

After a moment of taut silence, Anne gave a nasty smile. "Tell me, just how tough are those cyborg bodies? Do you think they'd survive, oh, a series of _boulders_ being dropped down the shaft on top of them? It'll probably cost a bundle to pay for a new elevator cab, but I'm sure Mr. Xanatos can afford it."

Owen blinked, momentarily surprised by this sudden exposure of Anne's darker side. Then he remembered that Hyena and Jackal's assault on the castle would threaten her daughter, and the prophecy of their assault had already given little Bethany nightmares, and there was no creature on Earth more dangerous than a mother defending her young. Though that rule might be applied to anyone sworn to defend a child, Owen thought as he responded, "Mr. Xanatos is rather accustomed to paying for battle damage to the castle and building. Now, for suitable 'boulders'…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Daniel Breckenridge, the man at the main security desk in the lobby that night, was suspiciously eyeing the monitors available to him while trying simultaneously to keep an eye on the glass doors leading to the street. Up until five minutes ago, he'd thought that it was going to be just another dull night on watch; the only incident to liven up an otherwise strictly routine shift was helping that nice blind guy get to his cab. From what he'd been told by the guy on watch before him, who had logged in Mr. Robbins as well as Detective Bluestone and a guy named Lennox MacDuff, there seemed to be some sort of party going on up in the castle, but down here in the lobby it had been deadly dull as per usual.

Then five minutes ago, Mr. Burnett had called out of the blue and asked him if he'd seen anything out of the ordinary so far that night, anything at all. After being answered in the negative, Mr. Burnett had told him to alert the castle immediately if anything _did_ occur, whether it looked suspicious or not. After several months of dull routine night after night, the prospect of being involved in a serious Security Incident thrilled Breckenridge as much as it worried him, and he scanned his monitors and the street outside with such intense concentration that he nearly jumped out of his skin when the phone rang again.

Blushing at his being caught out like that, even if no one was there to see it, he answered the phone in his best professional tone: "Building Security, Breckenridge here."

Mr. Burnett was on the line again. "Breckenridge, immediately make up an "Out of Order" placard and affix it to the doors of Elevator #5. And run whatever tape you have handy across the doors for good measure, so no one can ignore the signs and try to access it regardless."

"Yes, sir. Shall I call Maintenance for you, sir?"

"No, not yet. We'll call you back when it's safe to do so."

Breckenridge blinked. When it was safe to do so? He just had to ask, "Sir, how exactly is the elevator out of order?"

Everyone knew that Owen Burnett was the original Ice Man, with both his face and his emotions as frozen as the North Pole. So Breckenridge was really startled when he caught what seemed like a note of _mischief_ in Mr. Burnett's voice as he replied before hanging up, "It isn't yet, but it will be soon…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

One floor down from the main security room, Anne looked with wide eyes at the two Steel Clan robots standing in their alcoves, and clutched her daughter just a little tighter. "Owen, I don't mean to doubt your abilities, but are you _sure_ this is the best way? I've just seen too many movies where robots like these go haywire, and end up wreaking havoc on the people they're programmed to protect."

Owen didn't bother to look up from the programming console he was working at as he replied with just a touch of frost in his voice, "We are not in a large-budget Hollywood movie, Ms. Marsden. We have used these robots several times, in defense of this castle and in… other demonstrations of Xanatos Enterprise's robotics expertise, and while they have not always performed up to full expectations, they have _never_ gone against their programming."

"Sorry; I didn't mean for you to take it personally," Anne said with a trace of embarrassment. Seeking to change the subject a little, she looked over the robots again and said, "I can see a real resemblance to Goliath in their forms. I'll bet he was really flattered to have robots that were designed to defend the castle for him while he's asleep actually modeled after him, wasn't he?"

Owen paused briefly again. "Actually, he has expressed something of an unfavorable opinion about them…"

"Really? …Oh, I'll bet he was just a little insecure, worried that the robots might actually replace him in protecting the castle full-time." Anne gave a ladylike snort and shook her head as she went on, "Men and their fragile egos… as if any sort of robot could ever really beat a gargoyle in his element."

A corner of Owen's mouth twitched in the effort of holding back a smile. "The likelihood of that happening has been disproven more than once over the last few years."

Then he made a final entry, and the two robots clicked and whirred to life in their alcoves. "Ooohh!" Bethany squealed, her eyes wide as saucers, as her mother reflexively held her just a little tighter.

The robots marched out of their alcoves and proceeded out of the room, and Anne hurriedly backed out of their way, then joined Owen in following the robots down another level, to the castle's lowest dungeons. There they found some largish blocks of concrete, stacked against the far wall of the room halfway to the ceiling, and a few large steel bins filled with gravel and stone dust. Anne asked, "Is this where you keep spare building materials?"

"After the gargoyles returned to the castle, yes," Owen told her. "As the Aerie Building is bordered by streets on all sides, soon after their return we began receiving complaints about the stone shards and gravel being shed by the gargoyles damaging cars and tearing holes in awnings when it rained down from such a great height. Fortunately, no living person was injured before we installed the retractable steel-mesh nets around the base of the castle. They're automatically extended every evening, to catch the shed stone that falls from the battlements, and after they're retracted the gravel is brought here, along with the gravel and dust that the gargoyles themselves sweep from the battlements every fourth night. We've been informed that much of the original mortar used to build Castle Wyvern was actually made using imported lime and stone dust from gargoyle leavings, and they encouraged us to use their more recent skin-sheddings for the same purpose when repairs to the stonework are needed. Fox had the idea of also using the larger bits of gravel in a more modern concrete mix, which can be used in areas where the look of true carved stone isn't an aesthetic concern. For tonight, though, I believe these will suffice as our opening barrage of 'boulders'." As Owen was speaking, the Steel Clan robots were picking up blocks of concrete and carrying them out of the room, and over to the elevator doors on that level.

After watching the robots make about three trips back and forth, Anne suddenly clapped a hand to her mouth, trying to suppress the giggles that threatened to burst forth. When Owen gave her a raised eyebrow of inquiry, she explained, "I remember reading somewhere… back in the old days before indoor plumbing, people would sometimes get rid of unwanted visitors by dumping their chamberpots out of an upstairs window on top of them. Would you consider this the gargoyle equivalent of chamberpots?"

Owen's mouth twitched again. "The thought had indeed occurred to me…"

After the last of the concrete blocks had been piled into position by the doors, Owen said it was time for Anne to take her daughter back to the nursery; "At the moment, you are the last bastion of defense for both Bethany and Alexander." Anne agreed soberly, and took a deep breath before asking about obtaining a personal weapon. He gave her a laser rifle from the armory and brief instructions in its use, and took a matching one for himself. Then he told her how to initiate the nursery lockdown procedures from inside. "If all goes well, I'll knock on the steel doors before removing the lockdown, so you can be assured that it's me and not one of the cyborgs." And once they had decided (with Owen's mouth ever-so-slightly twitching again) that the recognition knock would be to the rhythm of "Pop Goes the Weasel", Anne hurried to the stairs to go up to the nursery.

Once Anne had gone and there was no one left to witness except the robots, Owen let himself smile a truly Puckish, wicked grin as he rubbed his flesh hand over his stone fist in anticipation. "Well, boys, now it's _our_ turn to have some fun tonight!" He shut off the lights in the hallway, then commanded, "Steel #1, open the elevator doors…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

"How much longer?" Hyena whined peevishly, tired of amusing herself by carving obscene phrases into the walls of the elevator shaft.

Jackal didn't even try to suppress his sigh this time, as he checked his built-in chronometer. "Another three and a half hours to dawn. Why didn't you bring a magazine to read or something? You knew we were going to be in for a long wait…"

But Hyena abruptly waved him to silence, as she swiveled her head to glare upwards. After a second she hissed, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Jackal asked, staring upwards with his cybernetic eye. He set it on maximum zoom and infrared detection, but couldn't see anything with either that or his living eye… wait. Had that dark grayish square way up near the top been there before? He thought it was at about the level of the castle…

Jackal had had one of his eyes done, but Hyena had opted for a cybernetically enhanced ear instead. She extended it out as far as it would go straight upwards, straining. "I could have sworn I heard a scraping sound, coming from far up the shaft…"

Then they both _did_ hear something, quite audible: a series of rumbling, crashing sounds, echoing their way down the shaft to them. And now Jackal's cybernetic eye detected several dark blobs tumbling down the shaft towards them, some of the objects glancing off the walls as they cascaded down… The twins traded a single horrified look as they screamed together, "INCOMING!"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Breckenridge had made up an "Out of Order" placard as requested and taped it to the doors of Elevator #5, and had just finished running masking tape across the doorway five times for good measure. He was walking back to his desk when he began to hear a rumbling noise, growing louder…

He turned around and started walking back, then just about jumped out of his socks, as the rumbling became a CRASHING, loud enough to wake the dead; like the building had just had an avalanche indoors! He thought for a split-second he'd heard somebody screaming as well, but after the crashing noises _finally_ subsided and he cautiously pressed an ear to the taped-over elevator doors, he heard only a few faint residual groans, the sort of distressed-metal sounds he heard when he saw kids playing on the rusty old, soon-to-fall-apart swing set in his neighborhood's playground; the rest was silence.

Breckenridge stepped back from the doors and walked back to his desk, shaking his head. "Man, and I thought my frat house back in college got rowdy sometimes. They must be having _one helluva party_ up there…"

NEXT: THE WEDDING! (_really_!)


	4. Part 4: Vows

**THE TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'… PART 4: VOWS**

By Kimberly T. (e-mail: kimbertow at yahoo dot com)

(Author's notes: An apology to everyone whom I kept waiting oh-so-long for the conclusion to this story, and a thank you to those, especially Puaena, who both encouraged and inspired me to finish this at last. In addition to the standard disclaimer about Disney and Buena Vista owning the gargoyles, and the songs described herein belonging to their named singers, songwriters and recording labels, a brief segment of the wedding scene in this story was shamelessly lifted straight from the TGS: Dark Ages story "Serendipity", and is the property of the TGS staff.)

* * *

By noon on the average Saturday in New York, the entire city is all a-hustle-and-bustle, the streets thronged with people either hard at work or enjoying the weekend, and this Saturday was no exception. The mid-November weather was crisply cold but clear, or as clear as New York air ever gets, and many were determined to take full advantage of possibly the last sunny weekend for some time to come, as winter set in.

In Castle Wyvern atop the Aerie Building, in contrast, only a few people were actually on their feet and moving. Anne Marsden, the Xanatos family's nanny, was down in the nursery minding her charge Alexander along with her own daughter Bethany. And Owen Burnett was moving through the halls of the castle with a tray in his hands; a tray covered with glasses of tomato juice, and small bottles of aspirin, Ibuprofen and B-complex vitamins.

His first stop was at the master bedroom, where he quietly and efficiently left glasses of tomato juice and small quantities of aspirin and B-vitamins on the nightstands to either side of the king-size bed wherein rested Mr. and Mrs. Xanatos. At his approach, Fox lifted her head long enough to blearily glare in his direction and mumble something largely unintelligible but definitely not complimentary at him before flopping back down again; David didn't even skip a beat in his snoring. Owen quietly let himself out, noting that Mrs. Xanatos was evidently still rather miffed with him about her unexpected bout of exercise in the wee hours of the morning…

His next stop was at the guest bedroom wherein resided the slumbering form of Matt Bluestone, still nearly fully clothed and sprawled on the bed in nearly the same position he'd collapsed in the night before. When Owen had checked on him before going to his own rest, he'd taken the detective's shoes off and thrown a blanket over him; now, as he set a glass of tomato juice, aspirin and vitamins on the nightstand, his mouth twitched ever-so-slightly as he observed how the detective had somehow wound up tucking his pillow into his chest much like a child with a favorite teddy bear.

Owen's next two stops were at the specially-equipped bedrooms that had been used by the mutates when they had resided at the castle over a year ago. Two of the bedrooms were occupied again; one by Talon, and one by Claw. Facedown on the gigantic specially-constructed cushion that served for a bed in the first bedroom, Claw barely twitched a whisker when Owen left a glass of tomato juice and slightly larger quantities of B-vitamin and Ibuprofen for him. In the next one over, Talon lifted his head to blearily snarl at him with eyes nearly as red as an enraged female gargoyle's, but when Owen fearlessly brought over the tomato juice, Ibuprofen and vitamins the mutate grabbed for them fast, and downed the juice and pills in a series of gulps.

His errands accomplished, Owen returned to the kitchen, where MacBeth was sitting at the breakfast nook leisurely finishing his breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast, downed with generous amounts of coffee. He nodded to the majordomo as he got up, saying, "Thanks for the meal, and tell the others I'll see them tonight at the wedding."

"Very well, sir," Owen nodded. "Again, I do apologize for the inconvenience…"

But MacBeth waved the apology away as he picked up his hat and overcoat. "Bah, I did just fine for centuries before elevators were invented. At least 'tis all downhill from here for me…" He shook his head and chuckled slightly as he remembered, "Puir Mistress Xanatos was as mad as a soaked cat by the time she'd walked up here from the 98th floor. Ye're lucky she was too tired an' still a bit too drunk to remember she hadn't reloaded her Taser wi' a fresh power cartridge…"

"Indeed, sir," Owen said dryly as he began picking up the breakfast dishes, carefully stacking and balancing them on his stone fist; he'd grown quite adept at using it in such a manner after over a year of being physically handicapped.

MacBeth headed for the stairs with his head high and a steady pace, showing no trace at all of a hangover despite all the drinking he'd done the night before at Goliath's bachelor party; a rather fortunate aspect of the 'healing factor' built into the spell that had made him immortal. Though the sound of a misstep on the stairs and the muttered curse that floated up from the stairwell indicated he was still feeling ever-so-slightly tipsy; an _un_fortunate aspect of the spell, since it bound him to Demona and let him feel an echo of whatever she was physically feeling.

Owen reflected as he headed into the kitchen that Demona must still be occupied in drinking herself into oblivion, as she had been ever since Monday; presumably, since shortly after her meeting with the People for Interspecies Tolerance. It was rather a pity that the corporate spy Xanatos Enterprises had managed to infiltrate into Nightstone hadn't been able to bug Dominique Destine's office; both Owen and his employers were most curious as to how that surprise meeting (a surprise for Dominique, that is) had gone…

Nearly an hour later, Matt Bluestone stumbled into the kitchen, thanked Owen profusely for the tomato juice and pills as well as the shaving kit and clean shirt in his size that had been left in the bathroom, plunked himself down at the breakfast nook table and begged for coffee. When Owen asked if he wanted cream or sugar in his coffee, he groaned, "Just wrap a cup around it. Oh hell, just give me the whole pot…"

Talon was next to stumble into the kitchen, shortly after Matt had finished his second cup of coffee and declared he was starting to feel a bit closer to the standard for Homo Sapiens. The mutate snarled in response to Matt and Owen's greetings, but otherwise ignored them both as he lurched over to the refrigerator, grabbed the tomato juice and started drinking straight from the pitcher. Then he grabbed the carton of eggs, cracked three of them into a glass and chugged that down as well…. Matt shuddered and looked away, then told Owen, "I've changed my mind; I'll just have toast and bacon, never mind the eggs."

At about the time Matt had finished his breakfast and Talon was beginning to act civilized again, Claw stumbled into the kitchen, moaning pitifully. Talon just sat him down into a chair, gave him the rest of the pitcher of tomato juice and cracked three eggs into a glass for him as well. When Claw eyed the glass of raw eggs and set his ears back, Talon told him, "Just trust me and chug it down. When it comes to hangovers, tomato juice and Vitamin B just aren't enough for us folks with fur and fangs…"

Just then, the intercom in the kitchen squawked; Mr. and Mrs. Xanatos were taking their breakfast in bed today. Owen nodded and picked up the tray he'd been carefully keeping warm for them; he'd been expecting the call. When he came into the bedroom, Fox glared at him and growled, "I _might_ let you live, if there's more tomato juice on that tray." Fortunately there was, as Owen had thoughtfully stocked up on the substance and on the B-complex vitamins while the others were planning their parties, so the majordomo was permitted to live another day.

While the couple breakfasted, Owen told them, "Building Security and Maintenance together have extracted Hyena and Jackal from the wreckage at the bottom of the elevator shaft, and handed them over to the police. They were both found alive, but in need of repairs to their limbs and weapons systems, and there were apparently some injuries to what remains of their original bodies as well."

"I can just see the lawsuits already," David said glumly in between gulps of tomato juice. "And of course, when asked about why they were lurking in the elevator shaft in the first place, they're going to claim that they were just sneaking in to surprise some old friends…"

"That kind of surprise, we don't need," Fox said firmly. "I never much liked those two anyway; even when we were in the Pack together, they gave me the creeps. I dunno what the hell I was thinking when I told you to hire them, instead of Fennec and Dhole …"

David said almost absently as he reached for a piece of toast, "You were jealous because Fennec refused to teach you how to do that nerve-pinch stunt of hers, and Dhole had better hair than you," then had to duck as a plateful of eggs came flying at him from the side.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Fox Xanatos wasn't the only person in a foul mood just then… Though her fit of temper was nothing compared to the raging going on in the Quarrymen's head office. Jon Castaway had just been informed, through the 'leak' that he'd managed to instigate in the NYPD, that Jackal and Hyena had just been hauled out of the Aerie Building and were in police custody, arrested for trespassing, breaking & entering and attempted assault. Only _attempted_ assault! They hadn't even made it up to the castle before being stopped! "The 'best in the business', my bleeding arse!" he shouted at his hapless secretary, who was cowering at her desk.

Noting her terrified expression, Jon stopped and took a deep breath, and counted backwards from ten in English, Scots Gaelic, French and German. It wasn't right to lose his temper at his secretary; she'd not been the one to recommend those two incompetent cyborgs to him, just the one to inform him of their mission failure, and it was never good policy to blame the messenger for the bad news.

He tried to console himself with the thought that at least he'd given those two tin-can mercenaries only half of their payment in advance, instead of full payment as they'd first demanded. But it was still a hundred thousand dollars wasted, money that Oliver Grimm had contributed to the Quarrymen's coffers for the purpose of supplying weaponry and advertising for the Quarrymen themselves. If Hyena and Jackal had succeeded in their mission, Jon had no doubt at all that Grimm would consider it money well spent, but now… He scowled and picked up the phone, knowing that he'd have to pay the money back with funds transferred from his family's Swiss bank accounts. But while waiting to be connected with the bank, he glared out the window at the Aerie Building that dominated that section of the New York skyline, and he vowed under his breath, "I swear before God, that one way or another, you _will_ be destroyed! Your entire misbegotten _race_ will be wiped from the face of the Earth!"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back at the castle, the temporary houseguests were gone; Matt had borrowed a company van with tinted windows from the parking garage to drive Talon and Claw back to the Labyrinth, and was going from there back to his place. Owen reported to Xanatos after consulting with the head of the repair crew hard at work on restoring Elevator #5, "They estimate they'll have a new cab installed and functioning by Monday night."

"We're paying them _triple-time_, and that's their best estimate? Wonderful. And in the meantime, we'll have to hoof it up and down twenty-two flights of stairs to get to the nearest working elevator," Xanatos sighed as, for the first time since its completion, he regretted deciding to install his private playground, the grand arboretum and its swimming pool, between the castle and the rest of the Aerie Building. "Are you really _sure_ that bombarding the elevator shaft with blocks of concrete was the easiest way to take those two out?" Owen just gave him a look in return, to which he sighed again. "I know, I know; the best-won battle is the one you can win without fighting. But after this, I swear to God that we're putting in another shaft that runs clear to the castle. And Fox honey, if you forget to put something in your purse tonight, we are _not_ going to come back up here to get it…" (Which earned him another swat, of course.)

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

"Never again; I swear to God, never again," Beth groaned as she staggered into the kitchen at the Maza family home, wearing sunglasses indoors. "I will never, ever touch another drop of alcohol…"

"You probably say that with every hangover," Elisa said with a distinct lack of sympathy for her kid sister as she sat at the table with her parents, enjoying a late-late brunch. "I _told_ you to alternate your mixed drinks with nonalcoholic drinks, like Mom and I were doing, and to drink the tomato juice once we came back here…"

Beth grumbled something under her breath at her sister, then plunked herself down in a chair and begged abjectly for an entire bottle of aspirin and something to wash it down with. She made a face at the glass of tomato juice her father set down in front of her with slightly-more-than-necessary force; Beth _hated_ tomato juice, and normally wouldn't touch the stuff if there was any alternative, even plain old water. But when Peter commanded her to drink it and take the B vitamins in his Father-Knows-Best voice (which was also a bit louder than necessary), she cringed and forced it down, and had to admit later that she _did _feel a little better.

"Drink some more juice, and then jog around the block for some exercise," her mother ordered. "I want you completely sober by sunset! After all we've done to make your sister's wedding as picture-perfect as possible, I won't have you ruining it with a sulky hangover…"

"Diane, sweetheart, everything will go smoothly," Peter told his wife reassuringly. "We did this just a month ago for our son and with even less time to prepare, and that went beautifully, didn't it? And so will this one, if you just relax and let it happen."

Diane tried to relax and partially succeeded, but Elisa just couldn't stop fidgeting as she wolfed down her brunch. And as soon as she'd put her dishes in the kitchen sink, she grabbed her jacket and got ready to head out the door and back to her apartment, to begin preparing for the evening's events. "I'll see you all at the Labyrinth tonight, at six-thirty," she said as she gave her parents hurried pecks on the cheeks.

"We'll be there, with the wedding attire for everyone," Diane promised. And with a glance over her shoulder at where Beth was still suffering in the kitchen, she added wryly, "and we'll try to have your sister smiling and ready to be the Maid of Honor by then…"

"Good luck," Elisa said, and meant it. She'd had a touch of a hangover herself when she'd awoken, but had made the precaution the night before of taking her tomato juice and B vitamins before going to sleep in her old bed, and had only needed another dose of each upon waking up to be completely back to normal. This girl wasn't about to be sporting a hangover at her own wedding, oh no…

God, she was getting married in just a few more hours! Every time she thought about it, her heart rate sped up to damn near double-time… and she was thinking about it so much, it was no wonder her hangover was gone already; her metabolism must be sped up to close to a gargoyle's just from sheer excitement.

As she drove back to her place, she glanced at the Aerie Building with the castle atop it gleaming in the afternoon sunlight, and wondered if Angela had ever sobered up enough to fly home from the Labyrinth; she'd easily drunk over three times as much as Elisa had last night. Whether she had or not, Elisa was willing to bet that Angela was another candidate for a hangover, if gargoyles ever got them. It was actually an interesting question: if gargoyles' stone sleep can cure nearly any wound, and leave them fully refreshed even if they'd worked themselves to exhaustion the night before, would it cure a state of drunkenness without a hangover?

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

The answers to Elisa's silent questions were: Yes, Angela had made it back to the castle, just before sunrise. But no, stone sleep did not _entirely_ cure hangovers. At least not the sort of hangovers that came from serious drinking binges, like the gargoyles had indulged in the night before… The noise reverberating across the battlements at sunset that evening consisted less of roars and snarls than it did of moans, groans and wails.

Angela, Lexington and Brooklyn all cringed and covered their faces with their hands and wings as soon as they'd shed their skins, and even Goliath and Hudson were silently wishing that the city would turn down the wattage of the skyline that night; hangovers can be particularly cruel on eyes that are phenomenally light-sensitive to begin with. The only two not seriously affected were Broadway and Bronx, Bronx because he'd stayed in the nursery with Alexander and hadn't touched a drop of alcohol and Broadway because he'd eaten twice as much as he'd imbibed.

Xanatos and Owen had been standing by with tomato juice and B vitamins for the gargoyles, just in case, and as it turned out that some of the clan were indeed suffering they began distributing to all. "I'd give you guys aspirin, too, if I only knew it was safe for you to take," Xanatos said regretfully. "I know it's not safe for the mutates, and for some reason, Sevarius never bothered to find out what painkillers are gargoyle-safe. One of these days, we're going to have to come up with a real physician for you…"

"For now, we'll take the aspirin," Goliath muttered as he held a hand to his head, wishing to ease the slight but persistent ache in it. This was absolutely not a good night for having a headache; not this most important of nights! "I've read that it's similar to the willow-bark tea that was used back in Scotland, and gargoyles have drunk that in the past with no ill effects."

Once everyone had taken the pills and drunk the tomato juice, it didn't take long for their heightened metabolisms to finish cleaning the remnants of alcohol and its effects out of their systems. Lexington scampered down into the castle and came back up with the specially-ordered wedding rings; they had arrived in an express mail shipment yesterday afternoon, but in all the excitement over the bachelor and bachelorette parties, they had been set aside rather than tried on for the correct fit. He was followed up by Fox and Anne Marsden, carrying Alexander and Bethany, and they sorted out who would be giving whom a lift to the Labyrinth. Anne had suggested that afternoon the possibility of asking the gargoyles to carry them there and back rather than trudge down and back up all those flights of stairs; it would be hard enough for the adults, but when carrying/dragging children along, it would be a nightmare. David and Fox Xanatos' egos were rather tweaked about the prospect of being carried like ordinary humans, but their personal jetpacks didn't have enough fuel capacity to get them to the Labyrinth _and_ back again, and even David had agreed that it just wouldn't do to wear his battle armor to a wedding.

In the end, Hudson chose to carry Anne as she held Bethany tightly in her arms, while Angela carried Owen, and Alexander rode in his special backpack with Lexington. Broadway carried Bronx, while Brooklyn carried Fox, who chose to cradle a laser rifle in her arms rather than her son; as she pointed out, if they encountered Quarrymen en route, somebody had to be able to drive them off before they got close enough to risk harming the children. That was the same reason Xanatos gave for carrying a matching rifle while Goliath carried him, though he promised they'd find a safe and secure place to stash both weapons immediately upon entering the Labyrinth, out of respect for Talon's "no weapons" rule. "And don't worry, I'll find another way to get back home," he told the clan leader with one of his famous smirks. "Don't think you're obliged to carry me off after the ceremony, instead of Elisa…"

Goliath should have responded to that with one of his patented glowers, but he wasn't really paying much attention to his passenger; his eyes were scanning their surroundings for potential trouble, but his thoughts were mostly focused inward. He really didn't understand why he was so nervous; he and his beloved Elisa were mates already, bonded and true, now and forever; what they were doing tonight was basically a formality, sealing the pact in front of others. But every time he thought ahead to the ceremony, and pictured Elisa walking down the aisle towards him garbed in a wedding gown like Maggie and Dana had worn… he could swear he hadn't such a case of wing-shivers even at his first mating ceremony, over a thousand years ago.

A few wingspans back, held securely in Hudson's and her mother's arms, Bethany squealed and wriggled with excitement. "Bethany, _no_! Don't squirm, _please_!" Anne begged her daughter as she held her even tighter.

"Och, the wee one's just excited to be in the air again," Hudson chuckled indulgently. "Not to worry; I wouldna let either of ye fall."

"I'm glad to hear that," Anne said weakly, but she still flinched and swallowed hard as she involuntarily glanced straight down. From this height, there sure was a lot of _down_…

"Keep yer eyes to the horizon, lass," Hudson said sagely, correctly interpreting her reactions and their cause. "Ye should come gliding with us more often; if ye did, by now ye'd be enjoying it as much as yer daughter is…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Far below and to the south and east of the clan's current position, a dark-clad figure sat on a building roof: a woman with the upper half of her face obscured by a pair of bulky goggles, looking at the Aerie Building through a rifle's sniperscope. She'd been on the roof, watching and waiting, since just before sunset…

"There! Finally… and it looks like the whole flock is on the move!" She watched through the sniperscope for a while longer, muttering to herself. "Come closer, my pretties… that's it, keep coming this way, get within range…"

Then she set down the rifle, and grabbed for the dufflebag sitting on the roof next to her. Moving quickly, she set up what looked like a miniature rocket launcher, loaded into it a small rocket with colorful Chinese characters emblazoned on the side, and whipped out a book of matches.

Unfortunately for her, the first puff of flame from a lit match was snuffed out by a stiff breeze passing over the rooftop. "Damn! C'mon, Lu, can't afford to screw this up again," she muttered to herself as she lit another match and cupped it protectively in her hands, as she held it close to the base of the rocket. This time the match stayed lit long enough to be touched to a fuse, which sputtered and caught, spitting tiny sparks as the string burned its way back to the rocket. "C'mon, c'mon… for as much as I paid for you, you'd better work, you overpriced piece of crap!" as the woman glanced anxiously over her shoulder, at where she had last spotted the gargoyles through the sniperscope.

Finally, the fuse reached the rocket and the spark disappeared inside. After a moment of ominous silence, the tiny rocket roared to life, and the woman instinctively ducked and covered her ears as the rocket shot upwards. Then she looked towards the castle again, and cursed. "Dammit, no! They've changed direction!" she snarled, just as the rocket she'd set off began emitting a screeching whistle.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Still some distance away from the crucial rooftop, the clan had just begun veering from its south-by-southeast course into a more easterly direction, taking advantage of a favorable wind that often whipped down that city corridor. As one, the gargoyles all winced and faltered slightly in their course as that awful whistling, ululating screech, sounding like the shriek of a soul being condemned to Hell, came to their sensitive eardrums. "Youch! What the heck's making that racket!" Brooklyn exclaimed, wishing his arms weren't full of a passenger so he could cover his ears.

"An attack!" Goliath looked tensely in the direction the screeching whistle was coming from, silently praying, _Not tonight, please not tonight of all nights_…

In Goliath's arms, Xanatos whipped his rifle up to bear and began searching with its scope in the direction the noise had come from. "I don't… wait a second; there! See that glowing smoke trail?"

"It sounded to me like one of the 'Whistling Willie' fireworks we used to set off every 4th of July, back in my home town in Pennsylvania," Anne called out from Hudson's arms. "But aren't private fireworks illegal in this city?"

"They sure are, but there's always somebody willing to break the rules," Fox said as she too held her rifle's sniperscope to her eyes. "There, on the roof directly below the smoke trail, I think I see somebody…"

"I see him too," Lexington said as he peered hard in that direction; he had the keenest eyes of all the clan. "I think he's looking in our direction… Shall we do anything?"

"I'd say, not only no, but _Hell_ no," Xanatos said firmly. "Not tonight, and certainly not while the kids are up here with us. Let the NYPD handle our noisemaker; it's what they're paid for." Goliath firmly agreed, as the clan continued on to the Labyrinth.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

"Damn! They didn't take the bait!" the woman cursed, as she watched the gargoyles continue gliding away from her. "And if the whole flock is on the move…"

She kept the sniper's rifle with her, but left nearly all her other equipment behind, as she bolted for the stairs down from the roof at top speed. A few minutes later at ground level, a motorcycle pulled away from the curb and began roaring east-southeast.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Far too soon for some people's liking but not soon enough for other's, the clan arrived at the dockside entrance/exit to the Labyrinth that was most frequently used by flyers; it was between two warehouses, far from conventional homes and prying eyes, and the near-constant stiff breezes blowing in from the harbor gave excellent lift for gliding.

Once inside, the laser rifles were stashed inside a vacant room and carefully covered over with debris, just in case somebody else came wandering that way before the night was over. While they were doing that, though, Bronx sniffed the ground and took off at a full gallop down the tunnel. "Hey, what--Bronx! C'mon back here; what's your hurry?" Brooklyn called after him, but to no effect.

"Let th' watchbeast go; he's probably hot on the trail of a rat," Hudson growled, pointedly turning his back on the sound of rapidly departing feet while bringing more debris over to cover the rifles. The clan elder still bore a grudge against Bronx, for the watchbeast's initial stubborn refusal on staying in the body he'd been transferred into by the magic spells cast on Tuesday night. The rest of the clan was somewhat worried about that lingering animosity, where before the elder and watchbeast had been the closest of companions, but hoped that the situation would improve eventually.

Once the rifles were judged to be hidden well enough, the rest of the mixed clan made their way at a more leisurely pace to the main area of the Labyrinth, with Brooklyn whistling "Here comes the Bride, Here comes the Groom" until Goliath 'accidentally' trod on his tail.

By the time they'd reached the Labyrinth's central chambers, it was already six o'clock, but that still left three hours before the ceremony was due to start; plenty of time for socializing with the Labyrinth residents and the guests that were soon to arrive.

"Talon! Claw! You guys recovered from last night?" Brooklyn called out with a wicked grin as he spotted the two male mutates coming out of the main kitchen area.

"I'm fine, but poor Claw here would probably prefer it if you didn't shout," Talon said with a grin as he jerked his thumb in the direction of his fellow mutate, who was indeed wincing and gesturing at them rather pathetically. "Ah, face it, buddy, you're just a lightweight when it comes to partying…"

"It's too bad you didn't get stone sleep along with the wings," Broadway told Claw sympathetically, while little Bethany scrambled down from her mother's arms and went over to demand a hug from one of her favorite 'big kitties'.

Talon scooped the child up and gave her a hug of avuncular affection. While Anne and Bethany had lived in the Labyrinth, he had become something close to the father figure she'd been lacking; like a favorite uncle, while Maggie had become a favored aunt. But tonight he held her back from scrambling up to sit on his shoulders for a piggyback ride, saying, "Sorry, Bethany, not tonight! I want my ears intact for hearing the ceremony…"

"She pulls on your ears during piggyback rides too, huh?" Broadway said with a wince, as he remembered the last time he'd been subjected to such treatment.

"If it ain't the ears, it's the mane," Brooklyn chimed in, unconsciously rubbing at his own silver-white mane as if to make sure it was all still there, instead of being pulled out in clumps.

"She just gets overexcited," Anne apologized for her daughter with a faint blush of embarrassment.

Maggie and Dana came to join the group, and Bethany immediately scrambled down to greet them next. Dana snatched the child up before she could collide with Maggie in her more delicate condition, and swung the child around in an airplane spin while she shrieked with delight. Anne stiffened slightly in apprehension, but evidently was used to Dana's roughhousing with the children and trusted her to take care that Bethany wasn't at serious risk of being hurt.

The group chatted for a little while, carefully _not_ talking about their experiences the night before; while they had all had fun, neither gender was entirely comfortable with verbally reliving them while the opposite gender was present. Xanatos ascertained that the food and drink for the reception, which he was once again providing, had been brought down a few hours ago and was waiting in the kitchen, except for a few items that would be prepared just before the reception was due to start. Broadway said, with an eager look in his eyes, "I've served up a lot of meals, and watched a lot more on television, both buffets and fancy dinners; would you like a hand in setting everything up?"

Angela saw the hungry look in his eyes and hastily tried to dissuade him, saying, "Broadway, dear, don't you think that would be a little rude, taking over their kitchen when you don't live down here?"

But Brooklyn interceded on his rookery brother's behalf, saying, "Hey, don't worry about Broadway's manners; he said he just wanted to help, not take over the place. And you know he's a great cook, so why not just let him do what he's best at?" as he turned just slightly, and flashed Broadway a quick wink where Angela couldn't see it.

Maggie and Talon gave him their blessing for helping with the food, and Broadway went happily off in that direction, already licking his chops in anticipation. Not realizing that Brooklyn's intercession on his behalf, while apparently well meant, had left Angela looking after his departing back with narrowed eyes, frowning unhappily.

Right after Broadway left, Hudson declared his intentions of visiting the clones again, to see how they were coming in their learning. He had come to feel that it was his duty, as had been the duty of elders in the old clan, to see that the clones, with the bodies of adults but the minds of hatchlings, were being raised well and learning how to fend for themselves.

Maggie told Hudson that Hollywood and Burbank were busy with helping a few other residents bring down more of the furniture that Xanatos had bought for the Labyrinth's use; mostly plain and utilitarian stuff, but a great improvement over the scrounged items the Labyrinth had been making do with, and another step in Xanatos' plans to make the Labyrinth a better place to live. Malibu, Brentwood and Delilah were in the chapel, helping to put the finishing touches on decorating it. In addition to placing and tending the flower arrangements that Father Sullivan had sent down earlier, from a wedding in his church that morning, they were carefully incorporating stems of white and lavender heather into each arrangement. Xanatos had arranged for those to be specially ordered and brought down with the food, since heather had been a traditional adornment—virtually the only adornment—for gargoyle mating ceremonies back in medieval Scotland. Maggie then got a mischievous twinkle in her eyes as she added, "You know, Malibu is especially helpful with the flowers, and he's even been helping tend the plants that you gave me for my birthday. He seems to be developing quite the green thumb; where do you suppose he got that from?"

Brooklyn covered his eyes with one hand and shook his head, groaning slightly at the thought that his clone was doing anything so… well, not feminine, but so unlike the macho image that Brooklyn himself cultivated. Angela, however, having been in the outer world for only six months or so, just looked puzzled as she asked, "Do you mean his thumbs are growing bigger? Malibu's already green…"

Everyone hid or tried to suppress amused smiles, and Maggie and Anne explained to Angela what the idiom meant while Hudson went off to the chapel. Xanatos went along to see if the chapel was lacking some decoration that he could supply on a moment's notice (what good is a six-star credit rating if you don't use it now and then?), and Fox followed him with Alexander in her arms, curious to see these clones she'd heard about but not yet had a chance to meet. Owen came along as well, as Xanatos' majordomo and his son's guardian, and possibly to satisfy his own curiosity about the clones; unlike Fox, he had been down here before, but only during the daytime when the clones were asleep in their sunlamp-rigged chamber.

When they reached the chapel, they found Brentwood and Delilah armed with dustcloths, oh-so-carefully wiping away the dust that had collected on the room's plain and utilitarian benches since the last time they'd been used. Malibu was helping Ruth, the Labyrinth member who worked with the gargoyles most often (she had said once before that she'd always been more of a night person) carefully redo one of the flower arrangements that had become somewhat bedraggled in the process of being hauled down to their subterranean level. Hudson greeted the clones with the traditional greeting between clans, "Clear skies to ye tonight," and chose to ignore Fox's muttered "Skies?" as she glanced up at the ceiling of the chamber, with a few hundred feet of bedrock between them and the sky.

"Hudson!" Delilah and Brentwood dropped their dustcloths and flocked around the elder, telling him excitedly about all the wonderful books they had found at the abandoned library. Hudson smiled at them as indulgently as a rookery keeper as he promised that yes, while they were down here tonight he'd be happy to read one of the harder books to them, and listen with the others while Delilah read one of the easier ones.

"Hmph. Hadn't even thought about what they might want for entertainment down here," Xanatos muttered aloud as he stroked his beard in thought. "Owen, make a note of this: on Monday, I'll want to--Owen?" as he looked over his shoulder. He could have sworn that Owen had been right behind him, as per usual…

But now Owen was sitting on one of the benches in the back of the room, and something about his posture seemed to indicate that he was sitting because his legs had momentarily forgotten how to work. And he was staring wide-eyed at the clones flocking around Hudson, Malibu having come over as well when they began talking about storybooks.

Xanatos looked at him sharply, then even more sharply at the three gargoyle clones clustered around the clan elder. He hadn't seen Owen looking so poleaxed since that day over two weeks ago, when they had first encountered Bethany Marsden, and that was because Owen's True Sight, the one Fey ability that Puck had built into Owen's mortal frame, had uncovered her Fey heritage. What was so unsettling to him about the gargoyle clones? Xanatos ran through his mind what little he knew about the clones already: created by Dr. Sevarius, now employed at Nightstone Technologies, under the direction of Demona and Thailog, most of them cloned from blood samples taken from the original clan without their knowledge. Malibu had been cloned from Brooklyn, and Brentwood had been cloned from Lexington, though Delilah had been cloned from…

_Oh, shit_.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Fox had been idly looking the clones over, wondering whether the cloning process itself had gotten their coloration bollixed up, or whether their super-accelerated growth into adulthood in such a short time had done it instead. But her attention was drawn back to her husband when he addressed the Labyrinth woman while standing by Owen, saying just a shade too loud, "I'm afraid my friend here isn't feeling too well at the moment; too much partying last night. Do you have a quiet room nearby where he could sit down and rest for a bit?"

The Labyrinth woman gave them directions to a room about four doors down, while Fox looked at Owen sharply; he was indeed looking rather strange. In fact, he looked _very_ strange, for normally expressionless Owen; almost as if he didn't know whether to laugh, cry or scream.

Her husband thanked the lady and left with Owen in tow. Fox was about to follow, determined to find out what was going on with their resident disguised Fey, when the clones all caught sight of Alexander in her arms and flocked around her instead, giving that near-universal "Awww…" uttered by most people upon seeing unutterably cute babies. The proud mommy in Fox insisted on showing Alexander off to them for at least a few moments, telling them how old he was but how he was so well developed for his age, crawling and teething already… And by the time she managed to slip out of the room, David and Owen were already out of sight.

Remembering the directions the woman had given, Fox set off down the corridor after them, but the door she came to was closed and locked. But on a hunch, she pressed her ear to the door, and dimly heard her husband's voice: "…just like Mommy #2, right?"

Owen muttered something in reply, but so faintly she couldn't make out the words. But David responded, "Oh, really? What have I missed?"

Again, Owen's reply was too quiet to clearly hear; Fox grimaced, thinking that it must be part of Owen Burnett's whole 'Invisible Man' trick, to have a voice that didn't carry worth spit. But she could clearly hear her husband's next words: "_Whaaat_!" then after another mumbled reply, "She has--Owen, are you pulling my leg! If she has--why the Hell didn't you tell me this before!" Another low mumbling, followed by David saying, "Uh, well… okay, I missed that. But now that you mention it…"

Just then Fox was distracted by someone exclaiming from beside her, "Hey! I know you…" Fox barely managed to suppress a guilty start as she turned around, to see another Labyrinth resident dressed in what had probably been a very nice suit once upon a time. He was grinning at her as he said, "I recognize the tattoo; you're that Fox-lady from the Pack, right? I remember that show; my nephew had a killer crush on you! Hey, do you give out autographs? Aw, cute kid, too. Gonna raise him up to be a kick-ass TV star like his mommy?"

Fox just barely managed to avoid rolling her eyes as she gave up on her attempt at eavesdropping and prepared to deal with yet another fan. There were times when she really enjoyed the fame and recognition that came with having been a television star; she wouldn't have agreed to "The Pack" in the first place, let alone agreed to having that plastic action figure made in her likeness ("With Karate Kicking Action!"), if she didn't enjoy being in the limelight. But there were also times…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Shortly after the Xanatos family had left the Labyrinth's main hall, another party had arrived. Halcyon Renard looked about from the confines of his motorized wheelchair, with the ubiquitous Preston Vogel at his side, and shook his head at what had been done to his old Cyberbiotics underground research facility. "When I think of what this facility had been designed for, all the research and discoveries that were made here before we had to close it down for lack of funds, after suffering those attacks and losing the first Air Fortress…"

His quiet remarks to Vogel were just loud enough to be overheard by inhumanly sharp ears. The gargoyles all winced as one, unhappy to be reminded about how they had been duped upon first awakening in this new world. And when Renard lamented about how it had all fallen 'to rack and ruin', Talon and Claw began to bristle defensively; they'd done a lot of work in making the Labyrinth more livable for all its homeless residents, and didn't like to hear of their home being disparaged by others.

Fortunately Maggie, ever the peacekeeping influence to balance her husband's hot temper, stepped in with a smile and a suggestion. "Mr. Renard, since you were there when this place was first designed and built, perhaps you could provide us with the information we need for making a few more repairs? We've restored power to many of the rooms and corridors, but other places are still lacking lighting and ventilation, and we don't have the schematics for how the electricity and air conditioning systems were designed to operate. And it would be great if we could get the elevators working again… Derek, darling, why don't you show him some of our trouble spots, and after the ceremony Mr. Renard might be able to find the old blueprints?"

An earnest smile, even from a felinoid face, can work wonders. Renard returned Maggie's smile with one of his own as he said with an air of gallantry, "As it happens, good lady, I've anticipated your request. I've downloaded all the schematics and blueprints for this facility into my chair's computer databanks," as he patted one side of his specially-designed wheelchair, "And Preston has the portable printer in his briefcase. If one of you would care to show us the rooms in question…"

Talon grumbled just a little at being so ably maneuvered by his wife, but he had to admit that the blueprints would come in handy, so within moments he was leading Renard and Vogel away on a tour of the partially restored facility. With a potential minor crisis averted, everyone else relaxed again… just in time for the Maza family to arrive, and the tensions to rise again as Diane took charge, sweeping in like a winter storm.

"Goliath, Brooklyn, here are your outfits, go ahead and put them on, and Claw, you go with them and help with the wing slots. Go on, shoo, Elisa will be here any minute and it's bad luck for the bride and groom to see each other before the wedding! Angela, here's your outfit, you go with Beth to your changing room, I'll be in to help you after I see how they're coming with the last of the chapel decorations. Wait a moment, where are the _rings_? And has Matt Bluestone arrived yet? I told him on Wednesday he needed to change the color of his cummerbund…"

Lexington hastily produced the boxes containing the rings from his belt pouch, saying, "That's right, we still need to make sure--"

But Diane swooped down on him and grabbed the rings out of their boxes, snatching up the larger one and placing it firmly in Beth's hand. "Beth, you hang onto that for dear life, keep track of it at all times until it's needed in the ceremony. And Brooklyn, you do the same with the smaller one; that's why I built that small pocket into your outfit. Now shoo, get Goliath out of sight before Elisa arrives!"

Goliath balked at being ordered away so summarily, protesting that it was a silly superstition, but Claw and Brooklyn together pushed and dragged him away, Brooklyn muttering that right now was _not _a good time to argue. People of all species scattered in all directions, some to meekly do as they had just been told and others just in hopes of escaping the potential wrath of an overstressed mother-of-the-bride. Diane herself marched into the chapel, and moments later her shriek of outrage could be heard three corridors away. "YELLOW _roses_! They're supposed to be **_pale peach_**, to match the roses in the bouquets we brought! Father Sullivan himself assured me that… Ohhhhh! _Why_ did we agree to let him supply the altar flowers again! Doesn't anyone else realize how yellow looks against lavender!"

Luckily, Xanatos came charging to the rescue, whipping out one of his many credit cards and sending Owen out to the city with orders to purchase and bring back three dozen pale peach roses, no matter the cost. He told Diane confidently as Owen hurried away, "He'll get them, don't worry. Even if it's after normal business hours for most florists, there are very few doors that can't be pried open with a _Vanadium_ Visa."

"Then we need him to pick up two rolls of matching ribbon, too! _And two rolls of pale green_!" Diane shouted after Owen's departing figure, before turning back to the chapel with almost a snarl on her features. "Two-and-a-half hours till the wedding, and…!"

"Diane, calm down; Xanatos will come through with the decorations," Peter told her soothingly. Then he sent a quick glare in the billionaire's direction that Xanatos had no trouble at all interpreting: _If you **don't** come through on this, you're dead and rotting meat_. But he went on, saying, "And once they're here, Maggie and Ruth will see to it that the chapel is made perfect in time. Every wedding has to have at least one hitch in it, right? And now that we've found this one and are dealing with it, everything else will run smoothly, right? Just take a few deep breaths… Elisa will be arriving soon, and you know she'll be nervous enough already without you stressing out in front of her…"

Diane glared daggers at her husband, but took several deep breaths as directed. And when Elisa arrived a few minutes later, looking harried with her arms full of bags and muttering that she must have packed half of her bathroom and bedroom vanity with her, but she _knew_ she was forgetting something, Diane was able to greet her with a calm smile and words of reassurance. "I'm sure you've got everything you need, dear, and if you did manage to forget something, Beth and I brought along all our supplies. Now, let's get you ready to be married…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Back up at the eastern docks, Matt Bluestone lounged against the shadowed wall of the warehouse that harbored the secret entrance to the Labyrinth and waited, his garment bags slung over his shoulder, for 'Lennox MacDuff' to arrive. Matt had assigned himself as MacBeth's guide to the Labyrinth, even though he himself had only been down there three times before; in truth, he was just looking for an excuse to spend more time with the long-lived and normally highly reticent Scotsman. Last night, while deeply in his cups, the immortal had let slip a few details about one of his former identities that had the detective burning with the desire to know more. If he was right, MacBeth could hold the key to at least one of history's greatest unsolved mysteries, and perhaps to more than one.

But as he waited, he noticed a motorcycle that was slowly cruising the docks, as if looking for something or someone. The rider was female, dressed in dark leathers…. and spending as much time looking up at the rooftops as down the streets and alleys. Not good behavior for strangers to be exhibiting tonight, even if, so far as Matt knew, all the gargoyles were already down below and getting ready for the wedding.

Matt knew the Quarrymen usually wore dark blue, but he reasoned that this rider might be hunting incognito for some reason, as he whipped out his cellphone and dialed a number. And while gargoyle-hunting, unfortunately, was not illegal in New York City, there was something to be said for the unofficial fraternity of policemen, and having friends in the right places. "Hey, Josh; how're the kids? … Glad to hear it. Hey, hook me up with Dispatch for the 17th Precinct, will you? I've got a favor to ask…"

Ten minutes later, as the cycle rider was cruising past for the third time, she was pulled over by a black-and-white car with sirens flashing. Now sitting quietly in his car, pretending to read a map with a penlight, Matt smirked to himself as he overheard the rider being ticketed for not having come to a full stop at a stop sign somewhere, then for not having the special motorcycle designator on her driver's license. And just to add insult to injury, the cop made her walk a straight line and perform the other standard tests for sobriety. Meanwhile, Matt knew, the patrolman's partner was writing down the name, address and other pertinent information on the rider, for Matt to collect once she was sent on her way, no doubt on fire with indignation and having completely forgotten about hunting for gargoyles. Xanatos might be unable to help the gargoyles anymore, after having been hobbled by the Illuminati, but he wasn't the only one determined to protect them, and the Illuminati hadn't specifically told _Matt_ not to do anything…

After the rider had been sent on her way, Matt walked over to the patrol car and flashed his badge. "Detective Bluestone, 23rd. Thanks, guys; swing by the 23rd sometime on the graveyard shift and I'll buy you both dinner."

"Sure thing. So what do you think she was really up to?" the patrolman riding shotgun asked as he handed over the information on the rider. "Her license was from California, with a home address in San Diego; that's a helluva long way to come just for a gander at our scenic docks."

"Possible link to a Mexican drugs-for-guns ring we've been hearing about," Matt lied glibly, the wheels in his head spinning rapidly. "Thanks again, guys…"

Five minutes after the patrol car had departed, MacBeth drove up and his arrival put an end to the detective's ponderings about why this Lacey person had really come to New York. Making a mental note to share the information with Elisa next time they were on shift together, he greeted the immortal king cordially as he showed him to the secret entrance, and enquired about his well-being. (MacBeth responded that he was just fine, thank you; evidently the Labyrinth was outside the range of his enchanted pain-link to Demona.) And as they were walking down the tunnels together, Matt said ever-so-casually, "So, last night, you were saying something about having once been a Seneschal for the Knights Templar…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Far across town, at the Roman Catholic Church known as Our Lady of Guardian Angels, Father John Sullivan sat in one of the church pews, lost in thought as he waited for Jeffrey Robbins, whom he would be escorting to the Labyrinth. Hudson had told him that the he and the author might well have something in common besides the gargoyles, as Jeffrey had been blinded while on a tour of duty in Vietnam.

The priest unconsciously fingered the eyepatch over his right eye, a souvenir of his own time in 'Nam. Before serving his time there, Johnny Sullivan had been a typical hellraising Irish-American teenager, more interested in having fun on a Saturday night and in earning enough money to pay for a real 'hot rod' for drag races than in earnestly working towards a career, let alone an interest in serving Christ and administering to His flock. But Vietnam had changed him inside and out, as it had changed so many other young men. No man can experience the trauma of war, the shock of seeing both strangers and friends dying violently in front of his eyes and the knowledge that he himself has killed another human being, and not be forever changed by it.

Some soldiers became hardened in their hearts, shutting off their emotions and teaching themselves that the people they were shooting at were somehow less than human, less worthy of living and therefore of little consequence. Some soldiers just couldn't cope at all, and got themselves killed at the first opportunity; some by walking blindly into enemy fire, some by their own hands. But the majority of the soldiers just did their best to survive, shot only when they were being shot at and prayed that they'd be able to forget the whole nightmarish existence once they'd returned to civilian life. Johnny had been one of those soldiers, just doing his best to survive the nightmare, but there had been moments when he'd teetered on the edge… In truth, a part of him had been almost glad when he'd been blinded in that mortar shelling; losing an eye had seemed almost a penance for killing so many others, people who very likely had earnestly believed their own cause was equally right. Upon his medical discharge, John Sullivan decided that the best vocation for him, and a way to heal his own war-sick and weary heart, was to become a nurturer and healer of others. But instead of becoming a doctor and healing bodies, he chose to become a priest, and heal wounded spirits instead.

After four years of college and four more years of seminary school, Father John Sullivan had taken solemn vows of celibacy and of obedience to the Holy Roman Catholic Church and its hierarchy, and had been appointed to serve at Our Lady of Guardian Angels. In the nineteen years since then, he had faithfully adhered to those vows, and served his flock to the best of his abilities, giving unstintingly of himself… and the rewards he had reaped in return, riches not in gold but in experience, joy and wonder… there were times when he could scarcely believe his own good fortune. He smiled wryly to himself as he thought again about how one elective course he'd taken in college, learning American Sign Language, had paid off in the most unexpected of ways, opening even more worlds of wonder. And that was before he'd even heard of gargoyles and mutates…!

But now, having earned the friendship and respect of the gargoyles, he knew his life was about to change again. He had prayed long and hard about what Goliath had asked him to do, about performing a marriage ceremony between a gargoyle and a human; it went against all the teachings of the Church, to wed a woman to an inhuman creature. He had finally agreed to do so only after he had satisfied himself, after much observation and long talks with Hudson and the others, that the gargoyles as a species were far more than just intelligent beings; that they had not just spirits, but _souls_. Souls that made them equal to humanity in the eyes of God, and therefore worthy of receiving and celebrating the sacrament of marriage. He was firmly convinced of that now, or he would never have agreed to perform the ceremony he would be performing tonight. But he seriously doubted the Church would see things the same way…

Father Sullivan knew he was about to immerse himself in a new war, a new struggle… The struggle to grant the gargoyles protection under the law, the right to exist without being hunted by Quarrymen. And this struggle could cost him more than just the respect of some of his fellow New Yorkers, those who could not or would not see the gargoyles as equals; it could well cost him his position in the Church, as well. Even the most loyal priest would have to admit that Rome always resisted change; even after centuries of both impassioned and well-reasoned arguments in favor of ordaining women and/or married men, such were still not allowed to join the ever-thinning ranks of the priesthood. For his insistence on treating the gargoyles as equals, and even administering to them as he would to a member of his flock, he could well lose his diocese and be brought up before the cardinals on charges of _heresy_; he might even be excommunicated, denied the graces of the Church forever. But every time he looked into a gargoyle's eyes and saw another soul looking back at him, he became more and more convinced that it was the right thing to do.

His musings were interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind him, the firm tread of a man and the soft padding of a four-footed animal, and a male voice saying cautiously, "Hello? Is anybody here?"

John stood up and turned around, smiling at the middle-aged black man coming into the sanctuary, accompanied by a guide dog. "Yes, I'm here; Father John Sullivan, at your service. And you would be Jeffrey Robbins?"

"I would indeed be him," the man said in a somewhat amused tone of voice. "And I suppose the appropriate password would be, 'Hudson sent me.' "

The priest gave a small chuckle as he approached and gently held his hand out for the guide dog to sniff, then raised it to shake the outstretched hand of Mr. Robbins. "A pleasure to meet you. Shall we proceed to the Labyrinth? My car is out back for driving us to the most convenient entrance, and I've cleared off the back seat to make room for your companion as well. I understand you're an author? What books have you written?"

They talked about Jeffrey's novels, two of which Father Sullivan discovered he had previously read and enjoyed, and discussed his latest work, which had just received its final editing and would be published in March of the following year: "The Sword and the Staff: A Book of Merlin". Jeffrey told the priest how he'd received the inspiration for that novel, and of his subsequent encounters with the gargoyles, as they proceeded into the Labyrinth.

Their arrival in the Labyrinth's main hall coincided with Owen's, as he returned with three dozen long-stemmed roses in a pale peach color, and a plastic sack containing rolls of ribbons draped over his glove-encased stone fist. Diane stepped out of the bride and bridesmaids' changing room long enough to begin fussing over the flower arrangements, until she was gently but firmly shooed away by Maggie, Ruth and Dana so they could substitute the new roses for the old ones and make the final arrangements in a semblance of peace. And the three ladies (with a little more help from Malibu) finished with an hour to spare, leaving them time to freshen up their own attire and prepare for the ceremony, while the other residents and guests all chatted amiably.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Over in the males' changing room, Goliath gritted his teeth and forced himself to hold still as Claw carefully slid the jacket of his tuxedo onto his back-thrust arms, and over his thrust-back-and-tightly-furled wings. Putting on the pants, shirt and cummerbund had already been a trial, even with all the clever tucks, openings and fasteners Diane had crafted in order to accommodate three lower limbs and four upper ones. He tried to suppress a growl when the jacket caught and tugged on his left wing-talon--again--but didn't quite succeed.

"Just shut up and hold still, and this'll be over quicker," Matt fearlessly advised, as he worked from the front on tying Goliath's bow tie for him.

Goliath held still, but he refused to shut up. He asked Brooklyn plaintively, "Remind me again why I agreed to wear all of this?"

"Because you're marrying Elisa, and trying to stay on the good side of your future mother-in-law," Brooklyn said, not even trying to suppress his smirk. His own outfit had been much simpler, and donned with relative ease; Diane had made for him a loincloth of black silk that matched Goliath's tuxedo, held up by a black belt with a silver buckle. He also wore a simple open vest of matching black silk, cut extremely low in the back to slip on under the wings and with two tiny slot-pockets sewn into it; one for a small boutonniere, and one for the ring that he was holding for Goliath until the ceremony.

"A tuxedo is a time-honored tradition," Matt explained seriously. "A test of endurance… you prove your love for your lady by showing how much sartorial torture you can tolerate. At least, that's what they told me the first time I had to put one of these monkey suits on, back at my high school prom…"

Claw snorted in amused agreement, as he finally got the jacket on over Goliath's wings and onto his shoulders.

As Matt and Claw together continued helping Goliath get dressed, Brooklyn glanced at himself again in the mirror and decided that while Goliath looked both ridiculous and uncomfortable, he himself didn't look too shabby. Except for the material, his outfit wasn't that far from what a few of his rookery generation back in Scotland had worn, and once he got past the slick feel of the fabric and the unfamiliar sensation of wearing a vest he had to admit it was downright comfortable. Not a bad concept, this gargoyle formalwear…

Except for one thing. He grimaced and shuddered as Matt finished with Goliath's bowtie and approached him with a similar scrap of cloth. "Aw, c'mon, do I have to wear that? Diane wasn't the one who gave it to me…"

"No, but she agreed it added a nice touch, so she might have well have given it to you to start with," Matt said firmly, while Claw nodded emphatically in agreement. "Besides, the clones are loaning this to you out of the goodness of their hearts, since they all wore ties for the wedding last month, and it'd be rude to refuse their generosity."

"Goodness of their hearts, sure," Brooklyn grumbled as he tried to stay out of Matt's reach. "They really just want me to suffer like they did…"

"And so do I," Goliath growled with a glint to his eyes, finally finding a hint of humor in the situation, now that his second-in-command would be suffering alongside him in at least one aspect. "Put it on, Brooklyn…"

Brooklyn submitted with ill grace, grumbling as he let Matt tie it on him, and complaining when he'd finished, "I can hardly breathe!"

"That means it fits just right," Matt said with a wicked grin, before turning back to Goliath.

Slipping out of the changing room while the others finished getting ready, Brooklyn wandered back to the Labyrinth's main area, to find Angela and Beth had also finished getting dressed and were chatting with the guests. Beth's maid-of-honor dress was in the classic A-line style, sleeveless and crafted of pale green satin. Its color set off the warm golden tone of her skin perfectly, and was trimmed at the waist with a pale peach sash. Angela's dress was in the exact same style but made of pale peach satin, with a pale green sash at her waist to complement Beth's attire. The two ladies were currently proudly showing Anne how even Angela's talon-tips had been carefully painted in pale peach nail polish to match her gown; Beth's idea, after seeing the gown colors yesterday, and she had spent nearly an hour painstakingly getting Angela's nails done to perfection.

Broadway had returned from the kitchen, and he was currently standing next to Angela and stumbling over words, trying to find the best way to complement her on how she looked in her dress. But Brooklyn walked up and said simply, "You look beautiful, Angela; prettier than the finest highborn lady to ever visit the castle back in Scotland."

"Why, thank you, Brooklyn!" Angela beamed at him. "And I must say, you look wonderful in your outfit, too!"

Brooklyn couldn't help preening a bit, throwing his chest out and shoulders back, and Broadway's face reflected both hurt and jealous anger as Angela went on about how the black silk really looked sharp on Brooklyn. But the moods of both males changed rapidly when she turned back to Broadway and said with a smile and a very significant look, "We'll have to ask Diane to make an outfit like that for you, next year…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Beth went back to the ladies' changing room just as Diane declared herself finally satisfied with the way her old wedding dress looked on her daughter. And Elisa did look beautiful; the dress, instead of being the usual stark white, was a pale shade of ivory that made her skin seem to glow. The tight-fitting lace-trimmed bodice had needed very little altering to fit Elisa's figure, and perched atop a full skirt of satin with a short train in the back. The veil of her silk-rosette-trimmed headpiece, instead of being brought forward over her face, floated behind and over her raven tresses like a gauzy breeze. The whole effect was reminiscent of a fairy-tale princess, and when Elisa turned this way and that before the mirror and asked her sister's opinion, Beth had to reply, "You look gorgeous, Sis." Then she asked, "You got everything, right? Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue…"

"Check on all points," Elisa said with a nervous smile. The dress itself was old, having first been worn by her mother over thirty years ago, but the headpiece and veil were new. And so were the sheer satin bra and panties she was wearing beneath it all, having been bought from Victoria's Secret (the Bridal Collection, of course) only two days before. The garter on her leg was made of blue satin, and the earrings in her ears were Beth's own diamond studs, having been brought from Arizona expressly for the purpose of loaning for the wedding. Outwardly, Elisa was ready to be married. Now if only the butterflies doing the 'Indy 500' around her insides would settle down…

Diane began taking pictures of the bride with her own camera, taking pictures of Elisa from every angle and in every pose (adjusting her veil, checking her garter, holding her bouquet, etc.), and a few shots standing next to Beth in her gown. When Peter knocked on the door to announce that the wedding was due to start in ten minutes, he got dragged in for photos as well, and then Diane handed the camera to Beth so she could pose with her daughter. "Just a few more pictures with this camera, and then we'll switch to the Polaroid and call Angela back in for pictures with her."

"You look radiant," Peter assured his daughter, in between snapshots. His smile turned wistful as he added, "Almost as lovely as your mother did at our wedding…"

"Flatterer," Diane chided him with a smile. "She's even more beautiful, and you know it." But the twinkle in her eyes said that the compliment had been accepted.

After having posed for several pictures with his daughter, Peter gave Elisa a fatherly kiss on the cheek and said, "I'll go out and send Angela back here for her pictures, and come back myself when it's time."

"Thanks, Daddy," Elisa said with another nervous smile. "Love you…" And when Peter went back out the door, she turned to her mother and asked with a slight quiver in her voice, "Mom, when you and Dad got married… were you this nervous? I swear to God, I'm going to throw up any minute now…"

"Last minute nerves are perfectly normal," Diane assured her. Then she paused, and said gently, "But then, if you're not absolutely sure that you're doing the right thing… Marriage is a huge step, the ultimate commitment, tying your life to another's forever…"

Elisa froze for a moment… then squared her shoulders and lifted her head high. "I know it is, and I want to do this. I know a lot of people don't understand how I can love Goliath, but he's… he's the other half of my soul, Mom. I love him, wings and talons and stone sleep and all, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him." Then she sighed, and added, "I just wish I wasn't so damn nervous…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Peter found Angela in short order, and sent her back for her photos with Elisa. Angela took with her a sprig of heather from one of the altar flower arrangements, for Elisa to tuck into her hairstyle and veil at Hudson's suggestion, even though her bouquet already had a few sprigs tucked into it.

Ten minutes later, it was time. Goliath took his place by the altar, careful to keep his tail just off the floor until he was perfectly in place, since Diane had seen fit to sheath all but the last foot or so of its prodigious length in the same black material she'd covered his legs in. It was a struggle to keep his tail and wings perfectly still, now that the wedding was actually upon them; Goliath was now convinced that he'd _never_ been so nervous before in his life, not even in his first few nights of leading the entire clan of gargoyles back in Scotland.

Hudson and Father Sullivan stood side by side at the altar, with identical smiles of patient reassurance for the nervous bridegroom, and all the wedding guests were seated on the benches. Matt and Brooklyn stood just outside the chapel, waiting to escort the bridesmaids to the altar, while Peter stepped out to escort his wife to her place of honor before taking his place by Elisa's side, for the father's traditional final duty.

But after another minute or so, Peter walked back into the chapel alone, with a very peculiar look on his face; like he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He announced, "(ahem) There will be a slight delay in the ceremony…"

"Eh? What's wrong?" Hudson asked in puzzlement, while Goliath's eyes grew wide.

"(ahem) The bride is currently locked inside her room, and--"

"**_Whaaat_**!" The chapel resounded with exclamations of surprise, drowning out whatever else Peter was about to say. Guests were getting to their feet and looking at each other in shock and embarrassed confusion. Was Goliath about to be _jilted_ at the altar!

"No… nononono_no_," Goliath chanted desperately under his breath as he sped out the chapel door, with Matt and the males of his clan hot on his heels, not that they had any idea of what to do in this sort of situation either. They pounded down the corridor to the bride's room, and skidded to a halt outside the door, instinctively looking to Goliath to speak first. And he did, saying pleadingly, "Elisa, please… I know our differences may seem overwhelming at times, but I swear I would give my life for you, and--"

"_Goliath_!" Elisa's voice came faintly through the thick steel door. "Thank God you're here; now shut up and get us out of here!"

Huh! Now everyone was _really_ confused. Especially Goliath; he paused and said cautiously, "Elisa?"

And her voice came through the door, with a definite note of impatience in it. "Come on, what are you waiting for! I'm not getting cold feet, dammit; we're _locked in_! We think Beth accidentally hit a switch on the wall or something, and now the door won't open…"

Everyone outside the door sagged in relief, and Matt, Brooklyn and Broadway even began shaking with suppressed laughter. After just spending a moment just leaning against the door, boneless with relief, Goliath straightened up and called through the thick steel, "Stand away from the door, while I rip it away!"

But now Diane's voice came shrilly through the door. "_Don't you dare_! I spent far too much time on that tuxedo to let you destroy it before the wedding!"

And now Angela's voice came plaintively through: "They won't let me rip the door away, either, Father. It would ruin my nail polish…"

"No problem, sweetheart," Broadway called out to her, unconsciously puffing up his chest. "_I'm_ dressed for action; stand back, ladies, and it'll just take me a moment to get you free…"

"Or perhaps we could try a less macho, more _sensible_ solution?" a voice came sardonically from behind, and everyone turned around to see Halcyon Renard zipping towards them in his wheelchair, with Peter jogging by his side. "From what Peter has relayed to me, it sounds like the ladies accidentally activated the room's emergency containment protocols. Fortunately, I know how those same protective measures can be disabled…"

With Halcyon relaying instructions for the others to shout through the door to the ladies, they soon had the door unlocked. And the first person out of the room was Diane, who peremptorily ordered Goliath and the guests back to the chapel, and told them there would be a further five-minute delay while the ladies made sure everything was ready again. Goliath grumbled--_again_ with that silly superstition about seeing the bride before the ceremony?--but everyone did as they were told.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Finally--again--everyone was in place. And now with surprisingly less nervousness on Goliath's part; it had largely been burned away by the annoyance of a few minutes ago. Not that it would ever have crossed his mind to be grateful for it… and a few moments later, all such thoughts were driven out of his mind, as Diane came in and cued her son to start the procession music.

Brooklyn and Beth came in first, arm in arm in solemn procession, followed by Matt and Angela. The couples parted at the altar, the groomsmen taking their places at Goliath's side while the bridesmaids veered to the left to take their own places. And as the music swelled to a crescendo, Elisa appeared in the doorway on her father's arm, and Goliath not only forgot how to think, but how to breathe. For all that she was human, she was so beautiful…

A horde of attacking Quarrymen couldn't have torn his gaze away from the sight of his bride as she came down the aisle towards him. And for her part, Elisa's gaze was utterly riveted upon Goliath, who looked so uncomfortable yet so regally handsome in his tux… She moved towards him without thinking, and only her father's gentle but firm grip on her arm kept her to the pace dictated by the music. Then they were together at the altar, and Peter was giving her a last affectionate kiss on the cheek before turning away to take his place for the ceremony, and they were hand in hand and almost glowing with their love for each other.

Hudson cleared his throat to gently gain their attention, and both bride and groom gave a tiny start, as if they had momentarily forgotten they had an audience. He gave them an indulgent, grandfatherly smile, then raised his voice to speak to all assembled in the traditional words: "Tonight, we come together as clan, to witness th' joining of two hearts…"

Hudson fixed his gaze on Elisa as he continued, "Of all th' decisions a female warrior must make, th' choice of a life mate is perhaps th' gravest of all. He will stand at her side, guard her back an' be a source of comfort for her for as long as he lives."

Then he paused, turning his gaze to Goliath. "And th' male must be just as wise when he chooses a female to court," he continued, "because should she choose him, she will be his chief advisor an' most cherished ally for as long as she lives."

"And so," he said with warmth, "now our sister comes before her clan to declare her choice as mate. Sister, do ye affirm yer choice?"

For one terrifying instant, Elisa's mind went utterly blank, unable to remember the correct response; then the words came back to her, and she swallowed hard but said clearly, her eyes never leaving Goliath's face, "Before this, my clan, I swear my love and affirm my choice."

"Brother, you have been chosen by this female," Hudson continued. "Do ye accept th' challenges that th' future might hold for th' two o' ye?"

His heart thundering so loudly that he momentarily fancied Elisa could hear it from where she was standing, Goliath said with a slight quaver in his voice, "Before this, my clan, I swear my love and accept my future."

Hudson nodded in acceptance of his words, but instead of continuing with the traditional words that would bind them as one in the eyes of the clan, he turned to Father Sullivan, to conduct his part in the ceremony.

Father Sullivan began by opening up his Bible to the first book of Corinthians, Chapter 13, and read several verses from it aloud for all to hear:

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all the mysteries and all the knowledge, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophecy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

And now these three things remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Then Father Sullivan focused his eyes on Elisa and Goliath, and told them to join hands and repeat after him, as he recited the vows.

His wings now shivering uncontrollably with emotion and his tail-tip twitching so fast it was almost vibrating, Goliath said haltingly as Father Sullivan guided him through the words, "I, Goliath, take thee, Elisa, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this night forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part. This is my solemn vow."

Tears of overwhelming emotion began to trickle out of Elisa's eyes as she responded, "I, Elisa, take thee, Goliath, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this night forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part. This is my solemn vow."

Father Sullivan then asked for the rings, and Brooklyn and Beth hastily produced them and handed them over. The priest blessed them, then handed them to the bride and groom for the exchanging. Goliath went first, holding the smaller ring up (as his hand trembled ever-so-slightly) and sliding it onto Elisa's waiting finger as he said softly, "With this ring, I thee wed."

Then it was Elisa's turn, and she held the ring up, blinking furiously to clear the tears out of her eyes so she could focus on Goliath's outstretched hand. She began to slide the ring onto he middle talon, saying, "With this ring…"

_Oh, nooo_….

The ring didn't fit. It was too small! It wouldn't even slide past his first knuckle… and it wouldn't fit on his third and smallest talon either…

In her seat by her husband, Diane moaned in agony and buried her face in Peter's shoulder. Peter just closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. And some of the other attendants began fighting down a mass case of the giggles…

But then Goliath whipped his tail forward and up to waist level, poking the end out over his hand and turning the very tip of it upwards invitingly. Fighting to keep a straight face (but not quite succeeding), Elisa slid the ring onto the tailtip while she finished, "With this ring, I thee wed." Goliath then curled his tailtip like a clenched fist, to hold the ring firmly in place.

Also fighting to keep a straight face, Father Sullivan faced the assembled guests and said as solemnly as he could, "Now that these two have given themselves to each other by solemn vows, with the joining of hands and the giving and receiving of rings, I now pronounce them married, husband and wife, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. What God has joined together, let no man drive asunder." Then he turned to Goliath and prompted gently, "You may kiss the bride…"

Not that Goliath needed prompting, as he swept Elisa into his arms and into the air for a full embrace with arms, wings and tail as they kissed. And the kiss went on and on, as the room erupted in cheers, whistles and thunderous applause.

When they finally came up for air, but still holding Elisa in his arms, Goliath told her softly, his voice quivering with emotion, "You and I are one…"

"Now and forever," Elisa returned softly, rubbing her knuckles across his brow ridge. And it was only when the Trio gave an extra-loud whoop of joy at the traditional gesture of affection that the two started in realization that they _still_ had an audience, and turned to face the assembled throng as husband and wife, mates forever.

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Most of the guests had been gently shooed out to the main kitchen/dining area, and invited to partake of the reception's buffet while the wedding party and their families stayed behind to pose for photos. But instead of immediately snapping away with their cameras, they gathered around to ponder what was to be done about the ring situation. "Aw, nuts!" Lexington said in disappointment as he eyed Goliath's ring, still tightly clenched in his tailtip. "They really made it the wrong size! Either the measurements got garbled in transit, or they just didn't believe how big a ring we needed."

"I _knew_ I should have fitted you for ring size while you slept, and had a backup ring made just in case," Xanatos said with real regret as he also eyed the too-small decorated golden band. "We'll have to have one made specially for you in R&D's metallurgy lab; it'll take another day or so."

"No, he can wear it tonight!" Angela said as she snapped her fingers. "Just the way I wear mine! Maggie, do you have a needle and thread handy?"

"Sure, in our room, but… Angela, I don't see a ring on any of your fingers," as Maggie scratched her head in puzzlement.

"That's because I don't wear them there," Angela said as she snatched up the ring in one hand, and the handkerchief out of Matt's tuxedo pocket with the other. Hooking the ring over one thumb and laying the handkerchief across her father's left shoulder, she then grabbed her father's head in her hands to bring it down closer to her level. Goliath blinked at her in surprise as she said cheerfully, "Ready, Father? It will only hurt for a few minutes."

Goliath blinked at her, then shrugged and said, "As ready as I'll RROWWW!" because Angela had just slashed her smallest talon though the bottom of his right earlobe.

A few drops of blood fell onto the handkerchief as Angela quickly jammed the small golden hoop up into the gash she'd made in his ear, then held it in place and brought together the torn skin around it as she said cheerfully, "This is how we put in all the earrings Ophelia and Nimrod made for us on Avalon, before Princess told us they were supposed to be removable! Now we just sew the skin shut around it, and when we pull the stitches out next sunset the ring will still be in place, if you want it there!"

Most of the wedding party looked on in shock and dismay, but Xanatos actually grinned as he considered the new look. "Why not start a new fashion for mixed-species couples? Looking pretty hot, Goliath!"

Goliath scowled at him, then turned uncertainly to Elisa. "What do you think, beloved?"

Elisa thoughtfully rubbed her chin as she tried to imagine it still there next sunset, without the blood currently surrounding the small gash, then smiled wryly. "It does make a nice accent, Big Guy. Kind-of studly, in a way. Smile for me?" Goliath gave her a toothy grin, and she shivered deliciously. "Oh, yeah, it looks good!"

"Then I'll keep it there," he decided immediately. "Maggie, if you or Angela will sew it in place, we can proceed."

Maggie quickly produced a needle and thread, along with some rubbing alcohol and cotton balls for cleaning the minor wound and preventing infection. And while Angela was carefully sewing Goliath's earlobe shut around the ring and wiping away the traces of blood, Dana signed something that immediately had Claw almost rolling on the floor, silently laughing his head off. Derek and Maggie burst out laughing as well, and Father Sullivan was also in stitches. Everyone else looked at them in utter incomprehension, and finally Xanatos complained, "What's so funny?"

"Dana said… sh-she said it's tradition…" Maggie gasped out, before giving up and wheezing with laughter again.

The ever-stoic Owen Burnett actually looked like he might be holding back a smile as he translated for the rest, "Dana commented that it's traditionally the bride who bleeds on her wedding night, not the groom."

Elisa blushed, as did Goliath in an interesting shade of purple, but the rest of those assembled all chuckled, giggled or began braying in outright laughter as Matt commented with a perfectly deadpan expression, "My, how times have changed…"

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

Once the earring was in place and the bleeding had stopped, and all the requisite photos had been taken, the wedding party joined the rest of the attendees at the reception. The sparkling cider had already been poured, and as the 'best male', Brooklyn proposed the first toast: "To Goliath and Elisa: may you have long and happy lives together!" Everyone chorused, "Hear, hear!" as they raised their glasses, and the party got underway.

The cake for the reception was a three-tiered masterpiece, topped by a pair of swans with their necks gracefully curved into a valentine heart instead of the more traditional representation of the bride and groom. When they held the knife together to cut the first slices, Goliath's hand completely covered Elisa's much smaller one, but they managed to cut two small pieces for themselves without mishap. Goliath fed Elisa her piece first, with exquisite tender care and love shining in his eyes. He had to bend down quite a ways for Elisa to do the same for him, but she managed to place the piece neatly into his mouth… but was unable to resist flicking just a dab of frosting onto his nose.

He bemusedly looked almost cross-eyed to focus on the dab of frosting, while a few of the onlookers chuckled; then he reached up to rub off the frosting and dab it onto Elisa's nose instead. As he rumbled very, very quietly, so only Elisa could hear clearly, "Are you sure you want to start another 'frosting fight' here and now, my love? Remember how the last one turned out…"

Oh, Elisa remembered! She never had been able to get all the chocolate stains out of that set of sheets… she hastily reassured Goliath that she'd had enough for now, as she grabbed a napkin and dabbed both of their noses clean again. (But she whispered to him that she did happen to have another tub of Betty Crocker's best in the cupboard at home…)

After a while of everyone telling jokes and stories about how they had first met either the bride or the groom, and added their own well-wishes for the happy couple, two of the Labyrinth residents came back in to let everyone know that the chapel's furnishings had been rearranged, to convert it into a dance floor as it had been for the mutates' wedding the month before. Goliath and Elisa led the procession back into the dance area, as they naturally would have the first dance.

The happy couple claimed the center of the room and nodded to Talon, the self-appointed master of sound (after all, it was his old stereo system they were using). He nodded back with a grin and a thumbs-up, before beginning the first song, the one that would be forever after known as "their song." And it came as no surprise to any of the people present that the first voice heard out of the large speakers was Bette Midler's, crooning:

"It must have been cold there in my shadow,  
to never have sunlight on your face.  
You were content to let me shine; that's your way  
You always walked a step behind.

So I was the one with all the glory,  
while you were the one with all the strength.  
A beautiful face without a name -- for so long,  
a beautiful smile to hide the pain.

Did you ever know that you're my hero,  
and everything I would like to be?  
I can fly higher than an eagle,  
But you are the wind beneath my wings.

It might have appeared to go unnoticed,  
but I've got it all here in my heart.  
I want you to know I know the truth (of course I know it),  
I would be nothing without you!.

Did I ever tell you you're my hero?  
You're everything, everything I wish I could be!  
I can fly higher than an eagle,  
'Cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Fly, fly, fly away,  
You let me fly so high.  
Oh, fly, fly, so high against the sky,

So high I almost touch the sky.

Thank you, thank you, thank God for you,  
The wind beneath my wings."

Elisa had also specially selected the next song, unbeknownst to Goliath, and asked Derek to play it immediately after "The Wind Beneath My Wings." It was one that she had always liked, but had taken on special significance to her over the last two years of befriending the clan and falling ever deeper in love, and now as the beat began she looked into her husband's eyes, soul reaching to soul in a moment of perfect understanding… and deepest, purest love. And Peter Gabriel's voice wailed out of the speakers as he sang,

"Love… I get so lost, sometimes  
Days pass and this emptiness fills my heart  
When I want to run away, I drive off in my car  
But whichever way I go  
I come back to the place you are

All my instincts, they return  
And the grand façade, so soon will burn  
Without a noise, without my pride  
I reach out from the inside…

In your eyes  
(the light, the heat)  
In your eyes,  
I am complete  
In your eyes  
I see the doorway to a thousand churches  
(in your eyes)  
the resolution of all the fruitless searches  
(in your eyes)  
I see the light and the heat  
in your eyes  
Oh, I want to be that complete  
I want to touch the light, the heat I see in your eyes

Love, I don't like to see so much pain  
So much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away  
I get so tired of working so hard for our survival  
I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive

And all my instincts, they return  
And the grand facade, so soon will burn  
Without a noise, without my pride  
I reach out from the inside…

In your eyes  
(the light, the heat)  
in your eyes,  
I am complete  
in your eyes  
I see the doorway to a thousand churches  
(in your eyes)  
the resolution of all the fruitless searches  
(in your eyes)  
I see the light and the heat  
in your eyes  
Oh, I want to be that complete  
I want to touch the light, the heat I see in your eyes

In your eyes,  
in your eyes…"

The tune hadn't originally been meant for a waltz, but somehow Goliath and Elisa adapted their rhythm to fit, as they glided together across the dance floor, moving as one.

Looking at the couple as they danced arm in arm, once more utterly lost in love and oblivious to those looking on, Peter sighed with the half-smile that his daughter had inherited from him and said to Diane, "I'll admit, I had my doubts about those two for so long… But they'll make it. They've got what it takes; they'll pull through all the rough times ahead, and stay together."

"Just like we have, for the past thirty-one years this December," Diane added, her own eyes misting slightly.

Peter kissed her cheek affectionately as he told her, "And once again, you've pulled off a perfect wedding."

"Perfect! I suppose, except for being locked in, and the rings, and--"

Peter closed her mouth with his, and when the kiss was over he turned her to face the bride and groom as they continued to dance, and said, "Look at how happy they are… to them, and in all the ways that matter, this was perfect."

Diane sighed in agreement as she pillowed her head on her husband's shoulder. "You're right, dear, as usual… this was perfect."

Now that the happy couple had their first dance, other couples were coming out onto the dance floor. Talon left the stereo setup to play out the songs he'd already selected while he took Maggie's hand and led her out onto the dance floor, where they joined Claw and Dana, already dancing. Beth had dragged Brooklyn out to show him a few steps, and as they were joined nearby by Peter and Diane, Brooklyn proved to be a swift learner and quite nimble on his feet. Angela immediately tugged Broadway out onto the dance floor to attempt a waltz as well (Angela being much more graceful at it than Broadway, but he didn't step on her feet **_too_** often). Fox quickly hiss-whispered to Lexington to take over minding the kids for a while, then said off-handedly to Matt just before letting her husband lead her out for a dance, "Poor Anne, she's such a wallflower; everyone sees her as just a young widowed mother, not as a pretty lady hoping for a dance…"

Not a stupid man by any means, Matt saw right through Fox's rather transparent manipulation. But he hadn't brought a date, and Anne was standing there looking rather wistful now that Lexington had grabbed both the kids and taken them out of the room to go play in the nearby nursery, and she was really very pretty in the dress Fox had picked out for her… He figured if he was going to do this, he might as well do it right, so he came over and bowed low to her, doffing an imaginary hat as he asked, "Would the lovely lady care to dance?" Anne blushed clear to the roots of her hair, but smiled and said yes, she'd love to dance, and let him lead her out onto the dance floor.

Just then, they became aware of a commotion coming from outside the doors, raised voices in exclamations of surprise or dismay. Everyone glanced towards the doors, including Goliath and Elisa, wondering what was going on out there. And moments later they found out, as Bronx, who had been missing since the gargoyles had arrived in the Labyrinth four hours ago, came grunting into the room, dragging behind him a canvas tarpaulin…

Heaped at least two feet high with dozens of dead rats.

Tugging a corner of the tarp in his jaws, Bronx dragged it over to where Hudson was sitting on a bench against the far wall, talking with Jeffrey Robbins. Angela, Broadway and Brooklyn all wailed together, "Bronx, _no_!" but he ignored them as he continued dragging the tarp across the dance floor. It was Broadway who finally observed aloud, with a wry grin on his face, "I think they're supposed to be a peace offering. He's trying to apologize to Hudson for what happened last Tuesday…"

The other gargoyles and several of the guests realized that Broadway was right, Bronx was trying to make peace with his oldest friend. But at exactly the wrong time… Except for Hollywood whispering somewhat anxiously to Burbank, "You think he left any for us to catch?" the dance hall had gone to an appalled silence as Bronx finally stopped in front of a wide-eyed Hudson, dropped the corner of the tarp and whined appealingly, wagging his stub of a tail. Then everyone heard…

Laughter. All eyes turned to Elisa, who was laughing hysterically while leaning against her new husband's chest, laughing too hard to even stand up by herself. Goliath, too, was barely able to keep upright as his whole frame shook with bellows of mirth. They laughed till tears streamed down their faces, and their mood spread infectiously to everyone else in the room, until the entire room was rollicking with laughter. There was no doubt whatsoever that this wedding was indelibly engraved into everyone's minds, forever a night to remember…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

After Hudson had gruffly thanked Bronx for the peace offering, then quickly dragged the tarpaulin full of rats out of the room, the dancing resumed with an even lighter mood than before. After the dances, and more food and drink and laughter, they arrived at the moment that several of the ladies present had been eagerly awaiting: the tossing of the bouquet. Elisa stood at one end of the hall with her back to the rest of the room, while all the single ladies gathered in the center, including Angela. Standing off to one side of the hall, Maggie looked at Anne Marsden, standing next to her, and suggested slyly, "Why don't you go join them? After all, you're eligible now. I could mind Bethany for you…"

Anne shook her head and gave a sad smile. "I appreciate the thought, but no; it's a little too soon, and, well…" But even as she denied it, her eyes flitted over to where Matt Bluestone was standing, joking with Brooklyn.

Down at knee level, Bethany held her arms up in wordless request to be picked up so she could see better, and when Anne did so, she asked as she pointed, "Mommy, what's 'Lisa doing now?"

It was Maggie who answered her, with a smile. "She's going to throw her bouquet now, Bethy. And all the ladies are going to try to catch it! It's a very special game of catch…"

"Special catch?" Bethany said excitedly as she twisted around in her mother's grip to face Elisa.

And just then, Elisa called over her shoulder, "Ready, ladies? Here it comes!" And she tossed her bouquet up high, in an arc almost brushing the ceiling. Over a dozen females readied themselves to catch it and/or tussle over it…

As it arced up… and _over_… curving in flight away from the assembled ladies, towards the side of the room…

And right into Bethany's waiting hands. As Anne looked down at her daughter with stunned and almost horrified eyes, Bethany crowed proudly, "_I got it_!"

Over in one corner, David covered his eyes with a hand and moaned, while a corner of Owen's mouth twitched, and Fox didn't know whether to laugh hysterically or run screaming from the room. Bethany had thought it was a game of Magic-Catch, like the game they played in the nursery so often, and redirected the bouquet to her own hands! But how could they explain this away, to the people assembled who didn't know of her Fey heritage?

Matt and Brooklyn exchanged quick, tense glances… and burst into derisive laughter. "Way to toss, partner!" Matt hooted at Elisa, who had also turned around to stare dumfounded at Bethany. "I told you you'd better practice that pitch, considering how often you miss the trash basket at work!"

"Good thing you can shoot better than you can throw, Elisa!" Brooklyn chimed in sarcastically.

Elisa obligingly blushed in seeming embarrassment, while nearly half the room burst into laughter. She tried to defend herself without incriminating Bethany by saying, "Hey, you try tossing stuff backward without looking! And there must be a cross-breeze or something near the ceiling!"

"Sure, sure," Broadway and Lexington chimed in sweetly as they also got the idea. "Whatever you say, Elisa…"

Goliath chuckled as he came up to Elisa and planted a kiss on her hair. "It's all right, my love; I married you for your brave heart and bright spirit, not your pitching arm." He turned to the rest of the room and said with a wry smile, "Gentlemen, I believe we should dispense with the traditional throwing of the garter, and placing it on the bouquet catcher. Unless one of you wishes to be accused of, ah, 'robbing the cradle'…"

"Pass!" "Not this guy!" "Not this garg, either!" and similar sentiments were echoed, as all the single males present grinned and held up their hands as if to ward off the very suggestion.

Not long afterward, the bride and groom headed out of the Labyrinth and for the surface, for the final part of the ceremony: the mating flight, to be combined with the trip to the 'honeymoon suite'. In all actuality, the 'honeymoon suite' was simply Elisa's apartment for the remainder of the weekend; gargoyles had never really celebrated honeymoons before, and Elisa hadn't been able to get any extra time off from work for a trip out of town. But as the bride and groom told everyone who asked, just a little time alone with each other, with no pressures from clan or police business intruding, was really all they needed to be happy.

They were followed up to the surface by several of the wedding attendants, laughingly pelting them with rice and carrying Elisa's bags for her (containing her normal clothes and toiletries), as well as a dark blue flannel blanket that had been bought just for the occasion. Once everyone was assembled on the docks, Goliath threaded and hooked his tail through the bags' handles and climbed the side of a warehouse to the roof, while Elisa stood at the edge of the docks and let Maggie and Fox wrap her up from neck to toe in the blanket, completely covering and concealing her shining white wedding dress. Goliath launched form the roof and circled once, to gain a little speed, before swooping down and scooping Elisa off the docks to carry her away, accompanied by the cheers and shouted well-wishes of their friends and family.

After the bride and groom had flown away, the party largely dispersed; the gargoyles and Xanatos family decided to return to the castle, though Fox urged Anne to take the rest of the night off if she so desired. "You haven't had a day or night off since we hired you; you deserve a break!"

"Sure, take some time for yourself," Lex chimed in, knowing his cue. "Bethany can stay with us until you come back, and as long as you reach the Aerie Building's arboretum before dawn, one of us can glide down to that level and glide back up with you from there, save you having to walk all those stairs."

Brooklyn put on his second-in-command face and asked Matt very seriously, "Can you provide the transportation for her, so she comes home in time for us to give her a lift?"

"Sure, I'll be glad to," Matt said with a smile. In all actuality, he'd been planning to head for home himself shortly after, but he'd had nothing planned except for crashing in front of the tube to watch the Late-late-late show and old Bonanza reruns; it wouldn't kill him to stick around the Labyrinth for a little while longer. And maybe if he was lucky, he could wangle a few more historical details out of MacBeth about the Knights Templar, and their secret successors…

Unfortunately, soon after the others had left for the castle MacBeth departed as well, saying that he kept to more of a daytime schedule now that he was teaching at the university. But Maggie and Talon invited Matt and Anne to join them for coffee and conversation in their home, and Matt shrugged and decided to accept. But as they went down to the Labyrinth's living areas again, the fully human couple following the two mutates, Matt noticed a slight bulge in his trenchcoat pocket that hadn't been there earlier. Puzzled, he reached in, and pulled out…

A blue satin garter. He shook his head, then quietly coughed for Anne's attention. And once she was looking in his direction, Matt dangled the garter from his fingers like he was holding a dead mouse by the tail as he whispered dryly, "Do you get the feeling we're being set up?"

Anne blushed clear to her hairline again, then buried her face in her hands as she muttered something about killing Maggie when she had the time and a blunt instrument handy. Matt shook his head as he said, "Maggie, nothin'; this was _Fox'_s doing. At least, she's the one who brushed up against me just after Goliath and Elisa flew off…"

"Oh God, not her too!" Anne moaned. "_Why_ are they doing this to us! I-I mean, I'm sure they mean well, and you're so kind and handsome and all, you're a wonderful guy, but… but it's too soon!"

Almost despite himself, despite his instinctive disgust at being manipulated and his impulse to fight against it, Matt's spine straightened just a little at the words 'handsome' and 'wonderful'. It _had_ been a long while since he'd heard any woman apply those words to him… Then he shrugged, and said cheerfully, "Well, they're your friend and your employer, so I'll let you read 'em the riot act. In the meantime, I'm already two cups behind on my nightly coffee requirements, and I wouldn't mind scoring a few more of those fancy hors d'oeuvres from the buffet. So just for tonight, we'll let them get away with it, okay?"

Still blushing, Anne smiled at him. "Okay."

And somehow, by the time they'd reached the set of rooms that made up Derek and Maggie Maza's underground home, they were ever-so-casually holding hands…

oo00oo00oo oo00oo00oo

"Penny for your thoughts, husband mine," Elisa said warmly, savoring the new phrase 'husband mine' on her tongue, as she rested her head against Goliath's broad chest while they glided across the Manhattan skyline.

Goliath waggled his brow ridges at her as he said with a wicked grin, "Actually, I was just thinking of making this a more traditional mating flight after all…"

Elisa sighed a little regretfully. "I know you'd prefer it, but remember what happened to our clothes _last_ time; Mom would never let us hear the end of it if we ruined all her hard work on these outfits. Besides," as she puffed out a breath to see the cloud of mist trailing behind them, "It's gotten just too darn cold out for my poor, thin human skin!"

Goliath nodded in regretful acknowledgement. The temperatures had dipped below freezing in the last few nights, and Elisa was probably already quite cold, even with the dark flannel blanket helping to keep in her body heat, not that she would ever dream of complaining to him about it. He worked his wings just a little faster, to arrive just a little sooner at her waiting apartment. She'd whispered to him just a few minutes ago that she'd turned up the heat to make it toasty-warm inside before leaving, but she'd left some champagne bottles half-buried in ice in the sink…

But when they arrived at her balcony, they found one last surprise waiting for them. Somebody had been by, and soaped "JUST MARRIED" on the balcony windows! "Who could have done this, and when?" Elisa said with a frown, as Goliath set her down and fished out the hidden key to the door. "It sure wasn't there when I left home a few hours ago, and I thought everyone was already down in the Labyrinth when I arrived…"

"I do not know, but it's a mystery to be solved on another night," Goliath said firmly as he unlocked and opened the door, feeling the delightfully warm air breezing out around them both, then swept Elisa off her feet again. "For tonight, I intend to concentrate only on one goal: you, and your pleasure."

"Sounds like a plan to me, Big Guy," Elisa said with a sultry grin as she let him carry her over the threshold. "I'd say it's time to get started on that 'happily ever after'…"

**THE END**

Author's note: Normally I put all these notes at the beginning of my stories, but this time I had to leave a little 'till the end, for what will soon be seen as obvious reasons. For long weeks--nay, months!--I sweated and labored and worried mightily over this chapter, wanting everything to be just perfect, absolutely fabulous, but continually getting vicious attacks of Writer's Block… Until I realized that perfection really ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Sure, everyone has seen at least one utterly beautiful wedding done perfectly, if only on TV. But the ones that are usually remembered best are the ones that _aren't_ perfect! Because, let's face it, **Life** isn't perfect. And it's those imperfections and the sometimes-humorous moments that arise from them that we remember best, and as we grow older, we learn to cherish… The door that sticks at a crucial moment, the ring that suddenly doesn't seem to fit, the groomsman who locked his knees while standing at attention and suddenly faints dead away, the little kid that sticks her fingers into the wedding cake, the tossed bouquet that goes bizarrely awry… (Yes, one or two of the above examples were drawn from personal experience, from my own fancy wedding. But I'm not saying which bits!) And it's my belief that a couple who persevere despite such setbacks and learn to laugh about them will have a stronger relationship in the end.

I've been writing about Goliath and Elisa and all the crew long enough that I sometimes almost see them as real people, so I wanted to give them a _real _wedding. One that they'd always remember, and chuckle over for the rest of their lives. I only hope that you, my readers, enjoyed it as well…

Clear skies,

Kimberly T.


End file.
